The Consequences of Resilience
by Kanarah J
Summary: Roxas is in love...sort of...and no matter what Sora and especially Axel say, he's happy. He's happy, because while his relationship with Hayner might not be all sugar-plums and butterflies, Roxas knows that this is right; it has to be. Sometimes love is sparkle and glitter, and sometimes love is black and blue. SxR, HxR, RxA
1. Love is: The Eye Thing

So…it happened. I never thought I'd be the person to write AkuRoku…ever…but here it is, and wow, look at this mess.

This is a dramatic shift in writing style for me, as it's written in a very, very close-to-character third person. It's intentionally a bit choppy and disjointed, and many liberties were taken with grammar. I'm trying something new. Yay for experiments. If you have a moment after reading, I would very much appreciate feedback. Thanks in advance!

**Warnings for the story overall:** Violence, sexual references/themes with implied dubious consent. Nothing too graphic, but probably slightly beyond T, hence the M rating.

**Disclaimer: **The characters used in this story are the property of Square Enix, The Walt Disney Company and their affiliates.

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**Chapter 1: Love is The "Eye" thing**

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Axel was doing that _thing_ with his eyes again.

And it was starting to piss Roxas off.

Roxas noted it—the eye thing—but continued talking anyway, because Axel could _not _know that he had gotten distracted, and he had worked extra-super-hard on this lie in particular (kind of).

"Anyway, it was starting to get late so I just stayed home. One thing led to another, and I'm sure you can guess what happened after that…"

Roxas paused dramatically, stretching his features into a thoughtful pose that was perfect.

A pensive gaze.

An unamused snort.

Axel's eyes were still doing _it_, and Roxas was starting to feel desperate, and a tiny bit itchy, and cold, and mad. He wished that Axel would quit it already, because it was becoming unbearably distracting, and Roxas needed to concentrate on this very, very important explanation. Standing there in Axel's living room that evening made him feel panicky, and uncomfortable, like giving a speech in front of an auditorium full of people, cold, possibly naked. It wasn't easy getting things past Axel, least of all things Roxas felt kind of guilty about, and his eyes, and that _thing_, and his facial expression, and the tilt of his hip, and _everything_, was just bent on making success about as impossible as building ocean liner out of popsicle sticks and melted crayons.

"Right," Roxas continued anyway. "I fell asleep. You remember how I told you I haven't been sleeping lately? Well, I guess my body figured itself out, because I crashed before the sun even set. I face planted right there on the couch. You should have seen it…"

Axel lifted his eyebrow, and all of Roxas's words started to crash together behind his teeth, a traffic accident of letters and syllables and excuses. The back of his neck started to get warm, as it always did when he was lying, and to make matters worse, he could feel his ears heat up, and they were probably turning red; he'd be caught in a matter of minutes, because that eye thing was just so telling, and now he was starting to perspire, and _oh yeah,_ this was _Axel _he was talking to.

Roxas babbled away, tripping over words, and backing up, and he decided if Axel did the eye thing one more time, he was absolutely, positively going to snap.

"Anyway," Roxas continued nervously. "Long story short, that's why I didn't make it here last night. I was going to call you, but I figured you'd be—will you cut that out? It's really distracting!" The fire that exploded from his mouth wasn't intentional, but Axel's eye thing was really grating on his nerves, and he couldn't keep it in anymore.

He didn't want to keep _many_ things in anymore, but being stingy with information took precedence over any girly, sappy whims he needed in the realm of self disclosure.

Axel did it again anyway; a slow, condescending blink every time Roxas said something that could quite possibly be construed as a lie—which, truth be told, probably was—and tilted his head in such a way that made Roxas's palms sweat. It wasn't the blink that got Roxas so frazzled. It was what it stood for. It meant Axel wasn't buying his carefully crafted story, that he could tell that Roxas was obviously trying to cover up something, and that the admittedly nascent hope of somehow getting a break today was being snuffed out like a candle.

"Ugh, I hate it when you do that!" Roxas challenged, deciding that if he couldn't beat him with a lie, then at the very least he could find a distraction. "It's so annoying."

Axel's face didn't move. "You hate it when I do what?"

"I hate it when you do that thing…that thing with your eyes. I'm trying to talk to you!"

Axel blinked slowly, and Roxas truly, truly wanted to punch him. "I'm not doing anything."

"Yes you are. That _thing_…yeah, _that_. Cut it out."

"Pft, you don't want me to blink?"

"_No_, blink all you want, but stop looking at me like you think I'm lying. If you already think you know the truth, then why did you even ask me?"

Axel rolled his eyes, a gesture Roxas thought was arguably more annoying than the blinking. "To be fair, I didn't ask you anything. You were the one who came over and started giving me an explanation. I really don't care what you do in your spare time."

"I'm doing it as a courtesy."

"Let's all be realistic here. It's guilt."

Roxas folded his arms. "Fine, if you don't want me to explain when I miss out on our hang out times, I'll just make plans with you, skip them, and not tell you why. How does that sound?"

"It's better than lying about it. If you had something to do last night, just say 'Hey Axel, how ya doin'? It's me, Roxas. I thought I'd try something different today and be upfront about things, and just tell you I can't hang out today instead of making up a pretty sad excuse for a lie. Why am I doing this? Because I value you as a friend, and you have an amazing personality. Thanks for putting up with all my bull.' I don't need a grand explanation. I don't keep tabs on your whereabouts like some kind of parole officer."

"It's a _courtesy_, Axel."

"Right."

"That's right, _right._"

Axel shook his head. "Nevermind. Look, if you fell asleep, or were spending time with what's-his-face, or going bowling on the moon, it really doesn't matter. I'd tell you that you don't have to feel obligated to lie to me about it, but we've had this conversation before, now haven't we?"

Roxas sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. It was true, he had been in the practice of being less-than-truthful about his habits these days, but in the grand scheme of things, it was really Axel's fault that he felt he had to be this way. If he weren't so good at reading right through Roxas like transparency paper, then he could just do what he wanted, and _not_ have to think about how everything was going so wrong.

Roxas snorted. "Whatever. Are we going to hang out today, or what?"

"Up to you, unless of course you want to go home and fall asleep and forget to call…or wait…maybe you ran into an old friend at the store and ended up getting lost in conversation. Wait, wait, my favorite is when you broke your arm falling down the stairs and couldn't come out of the house for weeks from the embarrassment. That was a good one."

Roxas looked slightly hurt by the last comment, but Axel wasn't looking all that remorseful. Roxas really couldn't blame him though. Stacked together like that, it really did sound like he was trying to avoid Axel. And he wasn't. He really, truly wasn't.

"Shut up," Roxas breathed, throwing himself onto Axel's couch, closing his eyes as he tried to will away an oncoming wave of anxiety. "All of that was one hundred percent true. Your questioning of my integrity wounds me in a way you can't possibly imagine."

Axel snorted and sat down next to him, unable to resist grabbing a handful of Roxas's hair and giving it a good-natured shake. "The only thing I've wounded is your pride."

"You're a terrible friend."

"And you're a liar."

Roxas grumbled and shoved Axel's hand away, leaning sideways slowly until he tipped over into Axel's lap. He could feel the pout grow over his own face, and chose not to look above him at the crown of red spiky hair, and green eyes staring down at him. As much as he hated that Axel knew him so well, he was comforted in the knowledge that maybe, if his carefully crafted veil of perfection suddenly fell, at least someone might not be on the long list of people kicking him in the proverbial ribs.

Axel poked him, and Roxas wriggled against his legs, staring up at him and pushing out his lower lip. "Cook for me."

"Are you serious?"

"I'm hungry."

"And what am I? A chef?"

"No, you're a terrible friend and need to make it up to me. Whatever you cook, make sure it doesn't include celery." He snapped his fingers. "Let's go."

Axel snorted, but shoved Roxas off of his lap anyway. "You're unbelievable. Scratch that, _I'm_ unbelievable for agreeing to do this for you."

"I appreciate you."

Axel made a face at him, and slumped off to the kitchenette, rummaging around in the refrigerator for food potential. Roxas in turn sprawled out on the couch and closed his eyes, exhausted. If only he really _had_ fallen asleep at his house last night.

Then maybe his eyes wouldn't be so heavy.

And his chest wouldn't hurt.

Suddenly the apartment felt impossibly small, and hot, and Roxas entertained the idea of just up and leaving—dinner be darned—to go back home and wallow in something amazingly similar to self pity.

But the thought of doing that was even worse than being hot and tired, _and_ under the impossible scrutiny of Axel, his shifty-eyed-bastard-best-friend. He was a caged animal for sure, and no amount of wishing and hoping (and finger crossing, as he had tried last night) was going to change that. At least Axel's cage, as strange as it felt, had a comfortable couch and he sometimes cooked him dinner if he whined enough.

It wasn't like home.

It wasn't like home at all.

He tried to push away the image of his own front door, and that miserable end table (which was ugly anyway), the broken glass on the floor, and the swirl of messy stuff that ruined the carpet and slid down the drain, but the biting cold feeling that welled up in the pit of his stomach would always be there to keep it on the fringe of his thoughts, and every passing moment that it remained made Roxas die a little bit on the inside.

He listened as the handle of a skillet twirled against the pads of Axel's hands before it was set onto the stove, and he would have been kind of comforted by the thought of being so well cared for like a beloved family pet (or some other cutesy equivalent), but then he had the distinct feeling that he was being watched, and the warm, kind of nice feeling was blasted to smithereens.

He rolled his eyes through closed lids, and waited, because as much of a loose cannon that Axel was, he was confoundingly predictable.

"So what _were _you doing last night, anyway?"

_There _it was. And Roxas resisted the urge to clap his hands slowly at Axel's ability to hold it in so long. He wilted on the inside, but kept his face neutral. The beauty of him lying on the couch, and Axel being all the way over _there_ was that he wasn't obligated to make eye contact. Instead, he snorted and pretended to settle in for a nap. "I thought you didn't care what I did."

"I lied. Sounds familiar, right?"

"I hate you."

"I accept that."

Roxas snorted and mulled over a few lies that he had in his repertoire, lies that he had prepared in advance and had the least potential to rev up their previous argument…again. The list was small (because _hey, _Roxas didn't make any false claims of being creative. Sora, his animated and lovingly psychotic twin brother had selfishly absorbed that gene), but it would do in a pinch.

He was silently mulling over how well Axel would accept a story of him spending the evening watching Soap Operas and folding laundry, when he heard Axel snort.

"You were with what's-his-name again, right?"

Well, there went _that. _"Whatever."

Axel snorted again. "Are you serious?"

Roxas pretended he didn't hear him over the sizzling sounds of food in the pan, he realized much too late that Axel took his silence as permission to keep talking. So many things were against him today.

"Please, Roxas. That's not even something worth lying about. You _live_ with him."

Roxas scoffed.

"And you're dating," Axel pointed out, waving a pat of butter around on the tip of a knife, before swirling it around in another pan. "In what world isn't it normal to spend time with your significant other, unless of course…something's wrong…?"

Roxas barked out a humorless laugh. He had gone through extreme measures to lead Axel around some of the more complex nuances of his relationship with what's-his-fa…._Hayner_, because really, their relationship was special, and also none of Axel's business. He didn't expect anyone to understand. Their relationship was fine (perfect, magical, sparkling rainbows, daisies and unicorn pee or whatever) and Axel was being an idiot. If Axel didn't choose to share his opinions on Hayner so often, he wouldn't need to make up anything, now would he?

He sat up on the couch and told him as much.

But when he finally forced himself to look into Axel's eyes—the hideous green ones that always twinkled like he had stolen something, or killed somebody, or _both_—he was met with another slow blink, a smirk, and the indescribable horror of realizing that he had just been baited.

"Ugh, shut up and cook my dinner," Roxas muttered, flopping down on the couch, cheeks red, and body cold. "We are _not_ going to talk about this."

"Talk about what?"

Roxas didn't look up. Axel was grinning, and probably doing that eye thing all over the place, and he did not want any part of it, thank-you-very-much. "You know exactly what. Stop talking about him like that."

Axel made some noise in the back of his throat, and Roxas gripped a nearby pillow in case he needed to throw it at him in a hurry (and if he missed, and hit the stove and the whole apartment caught on fire, it would serve Axel right).

"What, you think I'm mean to what's-his-fa—"

"Hayner," Roxas tried to say evenly. "And yes, I think you're mean to _Hayner._ If you'd knock it off, maybe I wouldn't feel so inclined to lie about being with him."

"That's not what this is about, and you know it."

Roxas felt his breath catch , but he refused to let it show. "You're walking on some thin egg shells…or…ice, or…whatever, Axel. I mean it."

Axel shrugged. "You and I both know what's going on here, but I'm the only one willing to say it."

Roxas balled a fist, but shoved it between the cushions of the couch so that Axel wouldn't be able to see.

Axel knew _nothing_. He could only know nothing. "You just think you know things. In reality, you're paranoid, and like drama. Go watch a movie or something."

"I am watching a movie. It's a horror movie, and the star is being an idiot. His handsome and witty co-star is even more of an idiot, because he's standing here cooking dinner like a servant instead of heading down to your house and pounding what's-his-face's teeth in with every possible weapon and non-weapon within reach."

"That's not funny."

"You're right. It's not."

Roxas peered up at Axel through a nest of blond bangs that had gotten about as mussed up as the current state of his life, and drew his eyebrows downward. Axel was giving him a stare from his repertoire of infuriating facial expressions, and he chose to be the bigger person (or something) and ignore him by stuffing his face behind the pillow he was gripping. "Wake me up when the food's done."

Axel muttered something in reply, but Roxas found comfort in the sound of the spatula sliding against the bottom of the pan, and the dull hiss of fat and oil against the heat. He had these conversations frequently with Axel. These spats were not new. Part of him wondered why Axel even tried anymore, because in Roxas's humble (and very correct) opinion, he had done more than what should be considered reasonable to demonstrate his stubbornness. He liked…er…loved Hayner a lot, and whatever little complex Axel had was just going to have to fall by the wayside.

That was that.

More or less.

Less.

he just crammed his face in between the pillows of Axel's couch, breathed in the smell of stale popcorn poorly masked by some kind of odor spray, and hoped with all his might that Axel would just leave him alone and cook his dinner, and stop asking questions, and stop knowing so much, and stop doing that thing with his eyes, and being there for him, and being a jerk, and, and, _and…_

"Food's done," Axel muttered, and the clank of the pan rang through Roxas's ears, even through the dense couch cushions, and the mental choir of mocking voices and clattering dishes, and not-so-nice feelings sang in his head. He pulled himself off of the couch and waddled his way over to the counter, seating himself at the bar counter just above the stove, pouting as he waited impatiently for Axel's service.

"Don't burn yourself," Axel said, sliding an omelet stuffed with chunks of something, and bits of something else onto a plate and handing it over. Roxas wondered briefly what the contents could be, but he figured that since Axel hadn't disappointed him before, it probably wouldn't kill him. Shrugging, he pushed the fork in his mouth and nearly spit it out as a jiggling mound of scorching hot eggs nearly burned clear through his tongue.

"I told you so. I swear, you listen about as well as you lie."

"Shut up!"

"Blow on it first, idiot."

Roxas narrowed his eyes. "I'll give _you_ something to blow on."

Axel rolled his eyes and slid an omelet onto his own plate. "You can work on making witty innuendos after you learn how to eat."

Roxas muttered a pretty handsome collection of curse words—some newly invented—and ate, outwardly bitter, but internally thankful that he didn't have to cook. His own version of preparing food involved a fire extinguisher and lots and lots of worrying. Hayner plus a smoking, sputtering oven usually meant more of those bad feelings.

"Despite you being a first class jerk, this is actually pretty good."

"Thanks…kinda."

"Anytime."

Axel watched him thoughtfully, fork hanging from his mouth, and eyes dangerously close to doing that thing that Roxas hated. "You know, it's weird. You only come over here to eat up my food, sleep on my couch, and make up stuff. It's a wonder why I still hang out with you."

"My face and brilliant personality are the stuff of legends. You must feel honored."

"Yeah. That's it."

Roxas narrowed his eyes. "And what about you? All you do is complain about how I eat up your food, sleep on your couch, and make up stuff. You're either a closet masochist, or in denial about some hidden affection you have for me." He waggled his eyebrows seductively, and licked his lips, catching a piece of egg in the process.

Axel snorted. "Hayner must really be pumping you full of drugs, among other things, I'm sure."

Roxas nearly spit out his food. This was uncharted territory on a deserted island in the middle of an undiscovered body of water that Axel was absolutely forbidden to travel on. This was _his_ relationship, not Axel's, and the fact that Axel knew talking about it made him frustrated beyond belief made Roxas kind of want to kill him. "Stop."

"What, I'm not allowed to talk about him? Bother you?"

"No, you're not. Stop talking about Hayner. It's none of your business what we do, or what we're like. Quit acting like a jealous ex girlfriend."

Axel tilted his head to the side thoughtfully, and Roxas's made the full and complete realization that everything he had just said bounced right off of his thick head and into the drain.

"I mean it." Roxas muttered, stabbing his eggs and pretending they were Axel's face. "You don't even know what you're talking about. If I were making the same fuss about that Demyx guy that was pining over you last year, you'd be saying the same thing."

Axel didn't say anything, so Roxas looked up from murdering his eggs to find that Axel wasn't even paying attention anymore, and instead had his eyes fixated on Roxas's neck.

He twitched involuntarily and pulled up his collar. He had forgotten about _that. _"Mind your own business."

Axel was silent for a few precious, painful seconds, before pushing himself off the counter and throwing his empty plate in the sink. "There's celery in your eggs."


	2. Love is: The Key

Thanks for coming back for Chapter 2. If you wouldn't mind leaving a few words of feedback, I'd greatly appreciate it!

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**Chapter 2: Love is the Key**

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Roxas left Axel's apartment in an angry huff, because really, there was no other way to leave when he insisted on breaking the world record for being the biggest, ugliest jerk. And yeah, yeah, he could have been a mature adult about the whole thing, talking through his issues and trying to come to a mutual resolution instead of just letting the same conversation rehash itself over and over again, blah, blah blah…but Roxas was tired, and cranky, and a little bit hurt, and arguing with Axel gave him a sort of warm feeling in the pit of his stomach—not _that_ kind of warm—that reminded him that sometimes it was worth it to fight back.

But now, as the cold wind slapped his face, and his booted feet sank into five inches of chunky, sloppy snow, he nudged himself into the reality where it was not worth fighting back. It wasn't worth the energy, and the time, and the goose bumps and the fidgeting. He got to sleep much faster that way, and when he was asleep, everything was perfect.

Roxas grimaced at the squelching sound his boots made on the sidewalk, sparing one glance up toward the snow-laiden steps of Axel's porch, watching as Axel glared at him before sliding the door closed.

They were fine.

They always were.

Roxas 'harumphed' into the wind, and marched down the sidewalk, keeping his feet lined up in prints previously made, though it did little good when the snow so quickly filled them up again.

Axel could have at least done the right thing and offered to let him spend the night. It was blustery out today; easy for a person as svelte and elfish as himself to get swept away in a gust of gray, but maybe Axel did think that he knew Roxas too well. He probably thought he would refuse. Well, he would have, but Roxas was nothing without his principles.

But now, as the wind nipped through his coat and scarf, stinging the fingers he clenched against palms shoved deep in his pleather pockets, he had his principles and his dignity and pride to walk him home, all into the loving embrace of his sofa, blanket and remote.

Positioned neatly next to Hayner.

Next to Hayner, not _what's-his-face_, the person Axel thought he knew so much about, yet respected so little. It was none of his business who Roxas chose to date, and even if things were bad (which, they weren't. They. Were. Not.) Roxas probably would continue to date him anyway, just to prevent Axel from being right, and wearing that stupid grin on his face, and doing that eye thing, and insisting on serving him nasty, bitter, horrible celery.

After all, Roxas was _nothing_ without his principles.

He nodded, and shrugged down into his coat, concealing his neck, and ignoring the cold that shot up the sensitive part of his arm, and left leg, and that ugly purple welt on his lower back that had magically appeared there over night when he had rolled out of bed and hit the nightstand (or did he tell Axel that he walked into the counter while putting the dishes away? No, that was his hip. His back was _definitely_ from the nightstand). He ignored them, pretended they weren't there, because really, if he kept pretending, they stopped existing, and home was the place he wanted to live, and not full of so many ugly things and mean furniture.

A snowflake landed in Roxas's eye, and he blinked it back, because even _nature_ was bent on being a shining beacon of wickedness. He trudged on. His apartment wasn't far, but the cold was making his bones stiff, the snow was catching his feet, and the pretend pain was awfully inconvenient for it to have been just pretend.

Minutes later, when his toes were a solid block of fleshy ice in his boots, and his hands had frozen into little rocks at the end of his wrists, he briefly entertained the idea of turning back around, just to add some variance to today. Just to throw Axel off. He'd stand at his door way, and point and laugh at his face as he stared back at him with confused eyes, because _'hah, you thought I left, but I'm back!' _and then he'd just leave and see just what Axel thought about that.

But no, he was already here, and Hayner had probably already seen him in the living room window (Hayner was attentive, and watchful like that), and turning around would make him look silly.

He marched up the soggy, icy stairs, nearly slipping and cracking his face open on the watery concrete and fished around in his pocket for the key.

His fingers took some coaxing to become unclenched, and after trying to loosen his muscles for so long that he was convinced winter had passed on into spring, summer, fall and back to winter again, he discovered with immense bitterness that his key was gone.

Wicked, winter, wicked celery, wicked Axel, wicked keys. He had probably shoved it somewhere in his jeans and in all of his efforts to ignore Axel's own personal inquisition, he must have lost the little gold nuisance in the cushions of his couch.

Roxas bit back a curse word that maybe wasn't that well bitten back, and let his head fall against the solid wood of the apartment door. Hayner didn't believe in keeping many spares. He told Roxas it was a lesson to keep him from being so forgetful and promptly took one of them from its hiding spot wedged between two planks of wood that helped make up the porch. That was a year ago, when Roxas had accidentally forgotten his key at Sora's place, and had to wake Hayner up from a nap. _That_ was a bad day, but Roxas learned to keep only one extra key hidden in his nightstand.

He remembered that feeling, and how he had fallen off the bed _again_ and wound up with a different welt, this time all over his forearm, and one at the back of his head, because that nightstand was a truly evil piece of furniture that made Roxas want to burn it almost as much as he wanted to keep it.

There was no avoiding it now, though. He just had to hope that Hayner wasn't sleeping, and that…and that was that.

He heaved a cold breath out of his lungs, and raised his fist to knock.

Roxas squeezed his eyes closed as he heard his fist connect with the wood three, sharp, obnoxious times. If his hands weren't frozen solid, he might have crossed his fingers, hoping with the deepest of all hope that he wouldn't be waking Hayner up from one of his frequent naps, or his favorite T.V. program, or a phone call, or a trip to the kitchen…

He pried one eye open and waited, but he was met with silence. Aside from being the tiniest bit glad, he was also confused. Hayner should have been home. He was _always_ home. It was one of the things that made them work: _consistency._

Roxas stretched up on his ice-hard toes and peered through the curtains. The dull flicker of the television danced against the lacy pieces of cloth, eliminating at least two of the items on the list of potential Hayner interruptions. Roxas couldn't decide whether or not this was really good in the grand scheme of things, because any given interruption would probably produce the same level of response. It was more of that consistency that Roxas loved. He loved it in the deepest pit of his heart, no matter what anyone else said.

Balling his hands into another fist, he gave the wood another sharp rap, and waited.

The snowflakes were making cold spots in his eyes, and his boots were sinking inches deeper into the accursed snowflake graveyard on the porch. The snow did not stop falling, and the door did not open.

Roxas knocked one more time, mainly for show, then threw his hands up in the air, marching around on the porch like some kind of crazy person—the kind of crazy person who was deeply, deeply mentally disturbed and was in need of round-round-the-clock-care—and considered his options. Hayner was in there alright. The problem was that he was either asleep or in another room doing things like _not_ answering the front door.

That probably meant that this was going to be even more of an ordeal than what Roxas had energy for, because now, all he really wanted to do was curl up in his bed and go to sleep. Swallowing up two lung-fulls of cold, miserable air, he fished around in his other pocket for his phone, and punched in the number to his apartment landline.

He could hear the phone ringing through the door, and the windows, and it seemed loud to him, as if the whole system inside of his house was actually wired to be a weather-watch system for the entire city. Roxas looked behind him to see if anyone else thought the ringing sounded unnecessarily loud, but as usual, he was the only person wondering what was going on, and why the universe was bent on using him as its personal punching bag. No one was out in this blizzard of an evening, meaning that he, the blasted snowflakes and hopefully Hayner were the only people to hear the ring of the phone.

With each shrill cry of the phone, Roxas felt his anxiety rise, and he resumed the crazed pacing, because _hey,_ he had already established that no one else was around to wonder about him, and standing still made the creepy feeling up his spine even worse. The phone cried five times. It cried five times through the inside of the house, through the lacy curtains, through the falling snowflakes, through Roxas's ears and down his nerve-splintered spine. He could hear the wails in his boots, of all things, and after the fifth ring, he wanted to call it back, pretend he had never called, never left in the first place.

Hayner picked up.

"Yeah?" He muttered into the phone, and Roxas wished that he was anyone else in the universe right now (except for maybe Axel, because Roxas could only stand so much personal shame), and croaked out a very weak 'hello.'

"Who is this?" Hayner said a bit louder.

"It's Roxas," Roxas said a bit quieter.

Hayner paused on the other end, maybe he was adjusting the phone, and not thinking of creative ways for the nightstand to hurt, and breathed out an impatient sigh. "Roxas?"

"Yeah, it's me." Roxas searched his mental rolodex for good things to say, but it was as blank as the grey sky above him. "I eh…I locked myself out again."

Another impatient sigh.

Then there was silence.

Roxas felt pressure in his jaw, and realized that he was squeezing his teeth together. He promptly continued. "Hayner?"

There was another sound, like the phone was moving, then the couch squeaked. A sigh. "What, what?"

"Can you…can you let me in?"

The pause that followed on the other end kind of made Roxas want to revisit his previous idea of going back to freak the living daylights out of Axel, but Hayner muttered something into the receiver that sounded kind of like "yeahyeahjustaminute," so he waited there on the doorstep.

Roxas waited there on the doorstep.

And his fingers were frozen, and so were his toes, and the part of his face that couldn't be bothered to stay behind the shelter of his scarf and hood. His skin was probably the most awful shade of pink, and if his nose wasn't in the process of freezing solid and breaking off, it was probably going to make a horrible mess of his scarf in a few moments.

Roxas waited.

And he waited, and he waited.

And then he waited more.

Something obviously wasn't right, Roxas decided feeling just the tiniest bit stupid. His eyelashes were definitely to freezing together and his body became one person-sized popsicle stick. Like, there was a reasonable "just a minute," and then there was _this,_ which, if Roxas's not-so-accurate calculations were correct, was starting to breech the ten minute mark.

Hayner might have forgotten, Roxas reasoned, finding comfort in an extra rummage around his pockets for a key he knew wasn't there. After all, Hayner had explained on more than one occasion that he had a lot of things on his mind all the time and couldn't be expected to remember small things like birthdays or deadlines. It made sense. Roxas respected that.

He considered calling Hayner back, but squelched that idea immediately. He had faith in Hayner. Hayner would not forget about him.

Two and a half minutes later, Roxas's faith was confirmed. A mental middle finger to all those who doubted him (Riku, Sora, and especially Axel) was promptly raised and waved as the door opened, and a not-so-amused Hayner pushed his face through the doorway.

Roxas nearly leaped into the apartment, his feet all light and airy and wonderful. Gleefully willing the cold from his bones, and the frozen clothes from his body, he wiggled out of his coat and scarf. He felt like he was melting in a good, good way, which was almost better than the promise of his bed and blankets.

And then he remembered that Hayner was behind him.

After peeling off his scarf and stuffing it and his coat together on the coat rack, he pretended not to notice the cross look on his face, and the downward turn of his mouth. It felt too good to melt. It felt too good to be out of the snow.

Skirting around Hayner's clenched jaw, he placed one neat, tidy kiss on Hayner's cheek and distracted himself with the rest of the disrobing process. It was always easier this way. It was always easier when he didn't look into Hayner's eyes.

"Thanks for letting me in," Roxas said, purposefully painting a grin on his face as he stacked his boots together and headed off to find something to mop up the melted snow near the doorway. When he returned, Hayner had moved only to lean against the wall to watch, and as Roxas kneeled down to tend to the puddles, he kept one eye warily watching his foot.

"The snow's really coming down out there. I'm such an idiot for leaving my key at…Ax…Sora's." There was no need to cause unnecessary fodder for an argument, Roxas decided. While he hadn't been forbidden from visiting Axel, Hayner liked Axel about as much as Axel liked Hayner. If he wasn't careful and drummed that up…he didn't even want to think about the war that would cause.

He peered up, and noticed with some relief that Hayner's expression had softened, and he was now rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand. This was good. If Hayner saw this as no more than a small inconvenience, then Roxas could enjoy a moment on the couch. This was better. This meant there was hope.

"You really are." He nudged Roxas's side with his socked foot, and Roxas stood with the silent command, abs tingling, and fingers trembling. When he did so, he was wound with a firm arm around his waist, and a hand roughly rubbing the top of his head.

Roxas chuckled nervously, because a nervous chuckle was already better than a choked sob, and fell into Hayner's hand with something like comfort. The hand left, and found its way to the small of his back, guiding him to the living room.

Roxas took a steadying deep breath, because really, the worst was over at this point, and allowed himself to sink into a space on the couch warmed by Hayner's previously sprawled legs and feet.

Hayner sat down next to him.

"How's Sora," Hayner muttered, gripping the remote and flipping the channels.

Roxas knew the question was a formality, because with the remote in his hands and the glazed look in Hayner's eyes, Roxas could tell he was everything _but _engaged. He obliged in answering anyway. "Fine."

"Hn."

And that was that.

Hayner watched television, Roxas watched Hayner and the crisp, awkward angles of his hair obviously garnered from spending all day with his head mashed against something warm and cushy, and there was silence.

Silence was good. Really, Roxas hated useless talking anyway, and there was nothing to talk about. This was why he and Hayner worked so well, Roxas thought. This was why they were destined to be together forever, and everyone who said otherwise was too blind to see the obvious. Too blind indeed.

With a sigh he intentionally stifled, he too watched the television. Race cars today.


	3. Love is: Accepting Differences

Chapter 3 is up. Thanks for coming back. Sora and Riku make an appearance. XD.

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**Chapter 3: Love is Accepting Differences**

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Sora is an idiot.

Roxas decided this _not_ because all his past academic performance and general obliviousness to most life events has proven this to be a complete and utter fact, but because his brother, as he sat there shoving weird wiggly noodles covered in some kind of sauce down his throat, wasn't listening to him.

Sora tipped back on the legs of his chair, and gave him a side glance, eyebrows bobbing up and down like two boats on choppy waters, and he pushed another fork full of food into his mouth.

Roxas decided that if Sora wasn't his brother, then he probably would have killed him by now, and even now he still _might_ if he continued to not listen and eat.

"Anyway," Roxas pressed on, throwing himself through this obvious test of his resolve. "That's why I'm late, although, clearly, it's not that big of a deal."

"You're right," Sora said through a mouth full of curly noodles. "It's not that big of a deal. It's not like we're going anywhere."

The _we're_ part of that statement turned around from the kitchen stove, apron tied around his waist and pan in his hand, looking so much like Axel with his green eyes and perma-scowl that it drove Roxas to insanity and back in the span of a few seconds.

"What is this you're feeding me, and why don't you make it_ all_ the time?" Sora said in a way that made Roxas ten kinds of uncomfortable, and Riku, the chef in question, snort.

Riku shrugged and poured more of the spring-like noodles in a plate and dumped another pan of sauce on top. "Rotini," he says simply. "I haven't cooked it before, but more importantly, it was on sale." He raised his eyebrows in question. "Good I hope?"

"Amazing," Sora replied, squeezing his fists together at his chest and batting his eyelashes like some kind of recently saved damsel in distress. The whole show was really unnecessary, Roxas thought.

"And this sauce on top? What is it?"

Riku shrugged again, pulling up a bar stool next to Sora in their shared kitchen. "Combination of stuff from the jar and stuff from the pantry. It's going to be rough after this month's rent, so nothing fancy."

Sora rolled his eyes to the back of his head, as he plowed through another three fork-fulls of noodles, but the small smile that Riku was poorly trying to conceal was much worse than whatever Sora was doing with his eyes. The whole display was disgusting.

"I'm not sitting here or anything….talking to you."

Sora broke away from his ecstasy of consumption long enough to meet Roxas's unamused expression and (finally) put his fork down.

"Sorry," Sora said in a way that made Roxas feel as though he wasn't sorry at all, and offered Roxas a noodle.

Roxas rolled his eyes again, refusing the proffered Rotini or whatever, and began tipping back on the legs of his own chair.

"So what's new with you?" Sora decided to pretend like everything was fine and was _now_ interested in pursuing conversation. "We haven't seen you around here in a while, and it's not like you ever call me."

Roxas snorted. "It's a two way street."

"I _do _call you." Sora insisted, picking up the fork again, and waving it around like some kind of baton. "You just never have time to talk to me."

Roxas bit back a sarcastic comment, mainly because he remembered that he was supposed to pretend _not to_ remember those calls. He was here _now_, wasn't he? Looking back on the past was completely unnecessary.

"Actually," Riku pointed out, now after years of practice, he was acutely aware of when Roxas and his twin were about to engage in an impregnable bout of bickering. "What have you been up to these days? It's been a while."

Roxas shrugged. To be perfectly honest, he knew that he hadn't seen the two of them, much less visited them at their shared apartment in almost three weeks before now. The truth was, Hayner really didn't like him going on social calls and the like (for good reason, too, because it really _did_ make him look desperate and whorish, and all that other stuff Hayner had said). Every couple of weeks he would mandate a trip to visit Sora and Riku, a working agreement that he and Hayner had made a long time ago. His visits with Axel were not as regulated, because if Hayner found out about all the times he had crashed there, eaten Axel's food, or listened to him moan about how much he hated his job, then Roxas doubted that Hayner would ever let him leave the house, and then people would start getting curious, and then they'd try to come visit _him,_ and then they'd make all kinds of commentary on a relationship that they obviously didn't understand, and then Hayner would get angry, and the nightstand, and…

"Earth-to-Roxas," Sora said with full cheeks. "You in there?"

"Huh? Yeah. Sorry, I got distracted."

"Sure you don't want any food?" Riku offered. "We don't have a lot, but you're welcome to whatever."

Roxas shook his head. He didn't need food. He needed things to start being normal, and to stop feeling like he had to keep secrets all the time. He wished people would just understand. "I'm good. Really."

He was met with identical looks of skepticism, before Sora and Riku resumed eating, and Roxas was left wondering just what it was that was going on.

Sora and Riku looked so lovey-dovey and gross together, Roxas thought, a bitter taste coating his tongue, and ten sharp pangs of pain touching his palms as his nails made little crescent moons into them. They were always sitting together like that, like they couldn't get enough of each other, and every moment apart was some kind of earth-shattering catastrophe. _Please_, there were much more pressing matters in the world than being apart for more than a few seconds, like driving in traffic and all the awful snow outside. Two people didn't need to be pushed together like a pair of balled socks at every waking minute.

Yet there they were, sitting by each other as though it was the most natural thing in the world, and that Roxas wasn't sitting right there in the midst of their subtle displays of affection, getting frustrated to the point of nausea that two people could possibly be so pathetic.

He was pretty sure Riku was holding Sora's hand underneath the counter—a quick glance confirmed it—and when Sora actually dared to feed Riku a noodle, Roxas had to coach himself into staying put and not cursing both of them as he stormed out of their apartment. He did not have the patience to deal with that nonsense today, not after having to babble through an excuse for being late; not after last night when Hayner saw that he had forgotten the dirty dishes in the sink.

He had come over to see his brother and his boyfriend, not be the witness to some crappy daytime soap opera.

"Not much," Roxas said a little too loudly, drawing satisfaction when Riku and Sora looked at him in surprise. "I haven't been up to much these days," Roxas continued, hiding a smug grin. "Just the usual."

Sora nodded slowly, finally seeming to get that Roxas was _not_ in a great mood and that all of the hand-hugging and noodle-feeding was murdering his resolve.

"Huh," Sora said simply. "Well that's okay I guess."

"You guys?"

Sora looked at Riku for help, who in turn just shrugged. "Pretty much the same. Working, paying bills, working more, and sleeping. It's about all we can do in this weather."

"Yeah," Roxas agreed, looking out the kitchen window at the growing expanse of white and gray. "It's pretty bad."

Then the conversation ended.

Sora went back to eating more noodles.

Riku went back to holding his hand or whatever.

And Roxas was left staring at the two of them like he was invisible and they couldn't possibly notice his judging eyes and pursed lips.

The _weather_, Roxas thought angrily. He had come over, and their entire conversation had consisted of excuses and weather. When had it become _this_ hard to come up with a conversation topic with his own brother, and Riku, who he had also known for a number of years? When did he have to make a schedule just to visit with the two of them, anyway? Why did he have to select time to visit Sora of all people?

Roxas shook his head. Things were always better with schedules. It brought order, and he had been spending too much time with Sora and Riku before anyway, according to Hayner, who was usually right; especially when the two of them insisted on being all kissy-face with each other. Roxas had his own relationship to attend to anyway. Once he stopped seeing Sora and Riku so often, things between he and Hayner had become so much better.

Hayner had said so.

Roxas nodded. If Riku and Sora couldn't be proper hosts and come up with conversation topics when these lulls happened, then it was their problem, not Roxas's. That made him feel better.

He stretched his arms out before him and rolled his neck around, to relieve it of some tension that had built up there, and thought it might be best for him to cut this visit short. If it continued snowing more outside it would be hard to get home, and he still had to shovel off the porch and stairs, too.

"What happened to your neck?"

Roxas was paying so little attention that he almost thought Riku was talking to Sora, but when he broke his gaze from the space in air he was preoccupied with and noticed that Riku's-almost-as-green-as-Axel's eyes were glued on him, he may have suffered a small heart attack.

Sora narrowed his eyes, pushing his tongue into the corner of his mouth. This was a signal Roxas had learned to read when they were younger. It meant Sora was done being an idiot.

"What are you talking about?" Riku's inquiry was an innocent, but Roxas tugged the neck of his shirt up anyway, and avoided eye contact from both of them. He wasn't nervous or anything, it was just that he knew that they weren't going to understand. No one ever did.

"It's nothing," he said, feeling a little bit like a loser, and knowing that at the very least Sora wasn't buying it.

Sora slammed down his fork, and Riku's eyebrows went up in a way that looked kind of like shock, but Roxas thought he really shouldn't be, considering he was in a relationship with Sora, and anything his brother did he should probably be used to by now.

"Uh, did I say something wrong?"

Roxas opened his mouth to say something, but Sora beat him to the punch.

"No Riku, you didn't. What you asked was a perfectly valid question. Tell us Roxas, what _did_ happen to your neck?"

Riku looked at Sora, then at Roxas, then back to Sora, before quietly scooting his stool out. "You know what? I'm just going to assume this is some kind of weird twin thing and let it go. Mind if I excuse myself if you two are going to have a moment?"

"You might want to go to our room and lock the door," Sora muttered through gritted teeth, eyes hard and cold. It unnerved even Roxas, who had grown to know every variance his eyes could possibly make over the years. He clasped his hands together underneath the counter.

Sora ignored Roxas's vain attempts to look at other stuff in the room (_Woah,_ how long has that door been there? Really, it's a nice door. Good color.) and gripped the counter as he launched himself out of his stool.

A sharp finger was jabbed in Roxas's chest, and Sora's blue eyes lit with fire and fury, and all kinds of other scary flamey things, as he opened his mouth to shout.

Roxas waited.

"Roxas," Sora spat, and Roxas was ready for it. He could already tell where _this _was going to go. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

Roxas made a very good show if rolling his eyes, and casually brushing Sora's hand away. "Cut it out. I'm older than you. Don't talk to me like you're Mom."

Sora growled, jabbing Roxas in the chest again despite Roxas's well-spoken dismissal. "You have got to be kidding me, Roxas. You told me this was over. You promised!"

Roxas rolled his eyes again. Sora just didn't understand. Sora didn't understand, and he never would, because he was clearly too blind and happy with his dopey little love affair with Riku, and didn't get that sometimes, people had different kinds of relationships.

Not everyone had to sit next to each other on the couch and watch movies together.

Not everyone cooked Roto…Rota-Roti…_wiggly_ pasta together and ate it like a well-rehearsed scene in a romantic movie.

Not everyone could read other people through their eyes and just _know_ what the other person was thinking like some kind of freaking clairvoyant, because _who does that in real life anyway_?

Sometimes people fought. Sometimes people cried. Sometimes furniture and pots and pans got in the way, and sometimes there were painful nights that just ended in tears and bruises, and harsh words. It happened. It just did.

These relationships were okay though, because the next morning, all the pain went away, and it was back to sunshine and rainbows and merry glittery stars and junk, which meant that the love that was present during their first date, the day they decided to be committed to each other, the first time they made love, and moved in together, and did all that other romantic crap was still there; and burning brighter than the fiery words and splintering bones. This was okay. This was normal.

Sora was just too blind to see it.

Roxas pushed his finger away again. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Sora scoffed. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Roxas. He's not good for you. He's just not!"

"Really, and you know what's best for me?"

"Of course I do."

"Yeah."

"That's right. Anyone would be better than Hayner. What happened with Axel? Didn't you like him for a wh—"

Roxas made a sound in the back of his throat that sounded a lot more threatening than he was willing to allow this early in the argument, but whatever. Sora may have been his twin, and maybe Roxas felt inclined to self-disclose a little too much when intoxicated in hindsight, but Demyx was dancing around in the background, and despite him being millions of miles in the past, Axel would just be…this was _not _on topic anymore.

Roxas rolled his eyes. "We're not talking about Axel."

"Why? Mad that I'm right?"

"No, I'm mad that you're prying. We're friends. Next subject." _That_ sounded like a lie, and Roxas knew that he and Sora's shared trait of reddening ears was starting to make itself known. He pushed his hair down and tried to lean back like further conversing was uninteresting.

"Sure. Let's go back to how Hayner's no good for you."

"Whatever."

"It's not 'whatever.' Hayner does and says horrible things to you, and you just sit there and take it?"

"Don't act like you know what you're talking about. Are you me? Are you Hayner? You don't know what we do."

"I don't?" Sora put his hand on his hip and tilted his chin up. "You can't possibly think that I wouldn't know what's going on with my own brother and his dick of a boyfriend, despite your best efforts to avoid me."

"I'm not avoiding you, but if you insist on arguing with me every time I see you about this issue, then I just might."

Sora narrowed his eyes. "I don't get to see you anymore because he tells you not to."

"That's not true at all." Which was the truth. Kind of.

"Really?" Sora asked, laughing humorlessly. "So then how would you feel if I called him right now; told him you were hanging out this afternoon with Riku and me?"

"Pfft, you can't threaten me."

"I don't threaten, Roxas. I act."

Roxas made a show of rolling his eyes, but felt a weird chill race up his spine as Sora crossed the room and headed towards the phone. Roxas's arm jerked up on its own accord and gripped Sora's elbow.

He grimaced.

Sora sneered.

"See what I mean?" Sora said, shaking Roxas's arm away, and making Roxas feel dumb. Roxas was _not_ dumb. Sora was the dumb one. He was too dumb to know that sometimes life had awkward bumps against the furniture, too dumb to realize that Roxas was really, really, truly in love. "You know what? I'm leaving."

Roxas visually hunted around for his coat, but of course Riku had to be a good host and put it somewhere out of his immediate line of vision. Probably the closet.

Sora though, in true selfish form ignored his attempts at retreat, and gave him an awful pitying expression that was somewhere between a frown and that look that broke out over facial features moments before people started crying, and dear sweet mother of all that was right in the world, if Sora started crying, Roxas was going to lose it.

He turned his nose up and muttered something he probably shouldn't have, which made the expression on Sora's face even worse (anything but tears, please…Riku was more cut out to deal with that crap, and Roxas had known Sora all twenty-three years of their lives for crying out loud).

"Sora cut it out." He tried, he really did, but if Sora was going to be all weepy and girly like that, he didn't feel obligated to stay.

"I can't." Sora said in a whispery cracked way that made Roxas feel itchy and nervous and guilty. "I just can't."

Roxas rolled his eyes and folded his arms, his way of being patient about the whole thing, when he just wanted to go home and dive underneath the covers. "Sora, really."

Sora ignored him and his previous nonverbals regarding the whole personal space issue and minding one's own business, because in the next moment, Sora was all over him with bony hands and arms, grabbing him by the chin with _both_ hands and twisting his neck in such a way that he felt lucky that it didn't break.

"This is not okay, Roxas." He stabbed a pointed finger at the very, very light (and very, very quickly fading) bruises that streaked left and downward from his jaw to his collar bone.

Roxas reacted to the motion violently, throwing Sora's hands away from him and pushing him backwards, the space between them finally tolerable.

The opposite effect, as Roxas observed, was written all over Sora's face because as he stood a few feet away bobbing up and down on shaky knees and ankles, Roxas was pretty sure he saw at least half a tear roll down his twin's cheek and disappear beneath the collar of a cotton shirt,

Not. Today.

Roxas pretended he didn't notice the tears. Riku could snake-charm him back into composure on his own time. Suddenly frustrated beyond the point of reasonable expression, he wrenched open the nearby closet door, celebrated for three seconds as he found his coat, threw it on, and rushed out the door.

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	4. Love is: Satisfying Needs

Thanks for sticking with this so far. I really appreciate it! Please note that this chapter contains minor sexual references.

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**Chapter 4: Love is Satisfying Needs**

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Hayner was good to Roxas, no matter what anyone said or thought, or did. If people didn't stop meddling in his life like he was some kind of child that needed care and attention, then he was going to stop having friends and brothers and lock himself in his apartment forever and ever to come.

Snow was falling in buckets on his head, and he was tromping-tromping-tromping down the street like an angry little soldier ready to destroy cities and countries and worlds, recently acquired spare key clutched tightly in his fists. Sora must have thought to be some kind of great servant to mankind. Treating Roxas like a charity case and then having the gall to cry at him when he refused was something so remarkable that Roxas wasn't even sure what he wanted to do with what had just happened. His own brother was a complete and total sap, and thought so little of him that he dared insinuate that Roxas didn't know what a working relationship looked like.

Part of him wanted to cry too, but he didn't. He shoved that tiny, tiny piece of him down into the depths of his mind and burned it until it screamed out long and loud in the quiet evening. No one, _no one_ was going to make him cry over something that he shouldn't even be sad about. He. Was. Happy. With. Hayner.

He was rough, but he was kind. He was kind and cool. He was cool, and graceful and smart. Roxas admired his smile, his hair, and his style of course, but there was something else about him that just completed Roxas in a way that no one had ever done before; not since Demyx had seen Axel walking home from work that one Friday night and burned a massive hole in Roxas's previous plans in one exchange of phone numbers.

There was so much to Hayner, much more than his looks, and he spent time examining each and every bit of those things since he had to back up the aspects of physical appearance with something in the realm of his personality (mainly to provide himself and Sora sound reasoning as to why he would possibly plunge himself into a committed relationship so quickly).

Yeah , yeah, bars were usually not his social scene, but he was feeling mopey that night because Sora and Riku were doing their weekly date thing, and Axel had still been trying to stave off Demyx, which at the time, he hadn't been sure of what their relationship actually was. He had elected to go out that night for a few drinks to take the edge off of his own self pity, and whatever, it was pathetic, but Tequila didn't judge and neither did Vodka.

Roxas had consumed three drinks. Three. He was sitting at the bar, and things were warm and fuzzy and happy, and he had almost forgotten that he was alone, when he saw Hayner sitting a few chairs down, equally fuzzy and all smiley.

Roxas admitted that two things crossed his mind when he first saw Hayner there with his curly hair and bright eyes, and neither of them were kosher. When he dipped his eyes a bit lower to his shoulders, sinewy arms, and tight stomach, third, fourth, and fifth thought also crossed his mind, and he was too tipsy to keep them inside his head and away from the open air and into Hayner's ears. Upon closer inspection of Hayner's slim waist, lower things, and even lower things, thoughts six through ten were tumbling out of his mouth, and before he knew it, he was a wanton whore, but the important thing was that Hayner didn't care and laughed with moon shaped eyes and perfect teeth.

Hayner had moved over, swirled his drink around corny and smooth, then put his hand on Roxas's lower back as he leaned down with an amaretto voice and whispered a 'hello' in the shell of Roxas's ear.

Roxas remembered almost falling off the bar stool at that moment. His body had been warm, and then it was warmer, and Hayner was talking to him in amaretto words that hinted at things that would make his mother blush, and_ wow_, his hand felt so great where it was resting on his spine, and he bet both of them would feel even better coasting up his sides, gripping his hips, winding in his hair, and doing other naughty, naughty things.

The night had ended in sticky sheets, an interesting collection of finger-shaped bruises, and pleasantly stinging scratches, and while Roxas had kind of considered that this one night stand was still better than sitting alone in his apartment watching television and pretending that he wasn't jealous of his brother and kind of fearing what Axel would say if he ever found out, he felt even better when at some point, Hayner had managed to wrangle his cell phone number from him, and then bothered to call the next day.

Roxas was pretty sure that wasn't how one night stands were supposed to work, so when Hayner had called three, four, five times over the span of the next few weeks, before Roxas had known any what was happening, the two of them were dating.

Maybe a tiny bit of him was just glad that he wasn't alone anymore being all jealous and girly, but that part could shut up, because Hayner was so good to him. He called often, checked on him, walked him home after dates, tried to get to know his friends, and clearly cared for him.

The sex wasn't bad either.

They were happy, and all was great and good, even if Sora had said that maybe something wasn't quite right about him, and Axel never liked anyone Roxas liked anyway, which served him right because Roxas didn't like anyone Axel liked either.

His life was happy with Hayner. When he offered to move in with Roxas, he ignored Sora's quirked eyebrows, Axel's exclamations of outrage and let him, because Hayner told Roxas on numerous occasions that he loved him, and when love was punctuated with soft words and caressing hands, it couldn't lie. It just couldn't.

And on the day that Roxas had burned the toast or something, and Hayner had been in a bad mood, and the lips that kissed that spot behind his ear, whispering more amaretto words and truthful "I –love-yous," started spitting fire; and when the hands that used to pull him into warm embraces and started to punch, and hit and choke, Roxas didn't mind. Love. Couldn't. Lie. It just couldn't.

This was why Sora was wrong. This is why Axel didn't know what he was talking about. Hayner made mistakes, but so did everyone, and Roxas wasn't the type to judge—_not really_—especially when Hayner was so willing to accept him for all his faults, and problems and issues.

Roxas tromped back home in the snow, alright, and he was happy about it too, because what waited for him on the other side of the door was a warm, cuddly couch, and a man who loved him and hated Axel. That was how things should be.


	5. Love is: Sleeplessness

Everyone, thank you so much for the feedback. I can't express into words how much I appreciate it. :) Your kindness and feedback has really propelled me as I write my future pieces. Thank you! Chapter 5 is up. Fluffines, and whatnot ahead.

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**Chapter 5: Love is Sleeplessness**

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It was snowing when Roxas found himself on Axel's doorstep.

Roxas dared, _dared_ Axel to say something.

It was there, he could feel it. It was bubbling up in the air, coasting through the space between them in unspoken words and angry eyebrows, and down-turned lips. Axel, ever the outright speaker never held anything back, even when Roxas told him that he would do much better in life if he could just figure out how to keep his lips together ("Yes, Axel, her hat looks funny. Don't tell her to her _face_, you insensitive jerk!").

He could tell that Axel's face was twitching, mouth desperate to let loose words that had been rumbling around in that otherwise empty brain of his, ready to fire them at Roxas in one complicated barrage of shame and blame, and questioning, and to be honest, Roxas was surprised that he had done so well this far keeping his stupid moth closed. But he was looking at him with angry eyes and any minute now he was going to do it so Roxas just wished he would _do _it already.

"What are you hungry for?"

Roxas's mouth fell open. "What?"

"I asked you what you were hungry for. You only come over here to eat, so I figured I'd just get a head start." Axel stared down at him from his porch, snowflakes swirling around his arms and legs because of _course_ there was a blizzard outside to accompany this already perfect evening. And Axel was just standing there acting like everything was normal, and Roxas wasn't standing outside on his porch in the middle of the night, sporting a very attractive swollen lip.

"You can't be serious…" Roxas couldn't help himself and coughed out, having already prepared a great excuse for why he had come all the way over in the middle of the night ("Yeah, I decided to take out the garbage because it smelled so bad I couldn't even sleep. Don't ever order take-out from Ming's, it smells awful after day two. What? I couldn't ask Hayner to let me back in. He works nights now, remember?").

Axel looked at him again, and Roxas just knew that his steely green eyes were fixated on his lip, if he weren't already extremely uncomfortable about it, thank-you-very-much, but he just snorted and moved out of the threshold and walked into the living room, an invitation for Roxas to follow.

Roxas narrowed his eyes, and felt very close to being angry for some inexplicable reason, but he held it in because yeah, Axel was kind of doing him a favor, and gifts like _not_ being questioned about things like this were rare whenever he had interactions with Axel. He swallowed hard—some of it saliva, but most of it pride—and followed, watching as a barefoot and pajama-clad Axel switched on a living room lamp and headed straight for the kitchenette.

"I hope you don't hate cucumbers as much as you hate celery."

Roxas realized, as he was standing there on the doorstep that he was kind of in love with his best-friend-best-enemy right then, and all that time he had spent being jealous of Demyx a few years ago was proof that it was all for good reason. He tentatively lifted up a boot from Axel's un-swept doorstep and waited, to make sure that this wasn't a dream or something, then stepped fully into the living room.

"Close the door already," Axel yelled from across the room. "Do you have any idea how much I spend on heat every month?"

"Eh, sorry." Roxas closed the door, now a little unsure of what to do with himself. He hadn't expected this to be so easy. In fact, he expected so much of a struggle that he had spent a considerable amount of time wondering why on earth he decided to come over rather than spend the night at the park like last time.

Oh right, snow.

Roxas spared a tentative look at Axel, who was rummaging through the refrigerator, tongue stabbing the inside of his cheek, and vein in his forehead tense in concentration.

"What were you doing when I knocked?"

Axel shifted his hips, producing a container from the refrigerator, which he shook curiously. "Sleeping."

"Oh. Sorry to wake you up."

"No you're not. Sit. You're making me cold looking at you."

"How's that?"

"Hey, you're a guest in my house. Don't question me. Sit."

Roxas did so, but not without feeling the slightest bit like a mouse tiptoeing around a maze of traps. Axel may have been dispassionately poking around in the refrigerator like a badger in a dirt hole, but Roxas could ever be too careful with these things. The minute he switched off his guard was the precise minute Axel preferred to strike.

"Listen, I—"

"Scratch the cucumbers, Roxas. Looks like the only thing fresh in my refrigerator is mold. Tea's going to have to tie you over until morning."

Roxas stared at Axel for a minute as he finished shuffling through the contents of his refrigerator and moved on to the contents of his cabinet. His eyebrows twitched involuntarily. What.

"Axel, I—"

Axel loudly shook a box of pre packaged tea bags, and did so again when Roxas opened his mouth to speak a third time.

"Axel I'm trying to—"

At this moment, Axel whipped around, tea box threateningly in hand, and eyes doing the slow blink to which Roxas would have usually paid extra special attention to hating if he hadn't been so completely confused. He stopped mid-sentence and gaped, kind of concerned that the tea box was going to leave Axel's hand and connect with his forehead.

A panicked gaze.

A slow blink.

"I'm out of sugar."

With that, Axel went back to hunting through the cabinets, this time for a tea kettle and two ceramic mugs.

Roxas's brain promptly shut down, and was capable of sustaining only two thoughts. First, he was very clearly being denied any opportunity to explain just why he had the gall to show up so late. Second, he definitely, definitely loved Axel for it.

Knees crumpling to meet the couch, he sat, and Axel floated over minutes later like a waif in the night, two mugs of hot tea in hand, probably so old it didn't taste any better than water with a bay leaf in it. And it was perfect.

"Drink," Axel said, but when Roxas pushed the mug to his lips, Axel shoved his hand between it and Roxas's face, and shook his head. "Are you trying to burn your face off?"

"You said 'drink.'" Roxas muttered, because to him, maintaining some pride meant being indignant, even though it was so very hard to be when every word he said sounded like there was cotton stuffed in his cheeks. "Make up your mind."

"Fine. Do what you want. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Roxas ignored the potential double meaning and drank and drank and drank through the heat and the pain in his face, and Axel's awkward staring, because there was still the potential for Axel to ditch whatever little game he was playing for starting the question game and Roxas wanted to put that off as long as humanly possible.

He finished, and slammed the mug down a little too loudly on the coffee table like had just finished a double shot of Gin, and waited for Axel to say something.

He didn't.

He watched for a second, sure, because anyone who just drained a cup of piping hot tea deserved to have their sanity questioned, but after a moment of quiet consideration, Axel just leaned back sipped his own tea thoughtfully, and left Roxas to wonder at what point he had stepped into the Twilight Zone.

"Axel," Roxas said quietly. He didn't want to sound impatient, but it kind of crept in anyway. Whatever was banging around in Axel's head needed to make itself known _now_ or Roxas was going to lose all of his sanity.

"Hm?"

"What are you doing?"

"…Sitting."

"You _know_ what I'm talking about."

"And that's why I answered you." He closed his eyes. "I'm sitting. You are too."

Roxas shoved him in the shoulder, the action of which Axel promptly ignored.

"Axel, I'm serious."

"I don't know how much more specific I can be."

"Axel," Roxas near shouted, facing him fully, not liking that he was so obviously being toyed with. "Don't play games with me. I'm not in the mood for it tonight."

"Great, because I'm not in the mood for games either. Or talking. I'm really not in the mood for talking."

"So you don't want to know why I'm here in the middle of the night, waking you up and not in my house in my own bed with Hayner? I know you're thinking it, so why don't you just ask already?"

Axel didn't say anything, and Roxas was really, really beyond fed up, almost to the point where he wanted to rip every red hair out of his friend's head and then set them on fire, but then Axel sighed, said something beautiful, and Roxas suddenly didn't want to hurt him anymore.

"I really don't want to know," Axel said simply.

Roxas, caught off guard by something profound—because really, in his circle of friends, profound statements were something of a rarity—kind of didn't know what to do. "You don't?"

"I don't."

"…Why?"

"Because if I know, I'm going to want to kill someone, and I don't think I'm financially and emotionally prepared enough to deal with going to prison, _and _having you hate me."

The shock continued—didn't wear of like it was supposed to, and Axel was silent again, and Roxas couldn't help _but_ be, then he became distinctly aware of how grossly deformed his face must really look, and what would Hayner think if he saw him right now sitting there really appreciating (and loving) that Axel was finally being a decent guy.

"Stop thinking," Axel said again, just as quietly, and Roxas felt like a jerk.

"Idiot, you can't stop people from thinking."

"Fine. Then stop thinking what you're thinking about."

"You don't know what I'm—"

Roxas did stop thinking suddenly, as his his brain shut off…again. It did, like someone had just come through his brain and decided it needed to save on energy or something and just killed the power.

Because Axel was suddenly running his hand through his hair all slow and gentle like Roxas was some kind of sheep dog—a sheep dog _puppy—_and for once a hand through his hair didn't hurt. His fingers didn't clutch or yank, or try to use the strands to pull him around the room. It felt nice, almost like he should be bothered by it.

Roxas snorted, very uncomfortable. "What am I, your pet?"

Axel didn't say anything, but instead wriggled down into the couch like he had no intention of moving, or listening to whatever else Roxas had to say.

"So you're not talking to me?"

"Roxas, sleep."

"Here? On the couch? Are you insane? I can't spend the night here. I have to—"

"Roxas," Axel said again, slowly, patiently. "Just sleep. You can't possibly tell me you aren't tired."

Roxas turned up his nose and scoffed, trying to ignore Axel's fingers still petting his hair. "Of course I'm tired. But I can't—"

"You can if you stop talking, close your eyes, and just do it."

"This is a little…unorthodox."

"You'd prefer my bed?"

A chill ran up Roxas's spine at the thought of what Hayner would say to that one.

"That's what I thought." Axel applied just the slightest bit of pressure to the top of Roxas's head, a crummy signal to get him to settle down and stop talking—not that Roxas could blame him, but the need to explain was still very much alive in his system. Roxas moved with relative difficulty. There was still so much more that Roxas needed to say, needed to help Axel understand, needed to make him _believe. _No, Hayner didn't throw him out because he burned dinner. He really was taking out the trash. And his face? He fell in the snow on the way out. His face connected with the snow-covered concrete, ha-ha, Roxas is so clumsy all the time. And being kicked out with hateful words and threats to never come back was all a misunderstanding. He was fine. Hayner was fine. Everyone was fine. _Hearing _Roxas's thoughts, and ignoring them, Axel pulled off the blanket resting on the back of his couch down, and threw it over him, the edge flopping over Axel's knee.

It couldn't have been more perfect, than say, if Roxas knew what in the world was going on and why it felt perfect in the first place.

"Goodnight," Axel said simply, punctuating the statement with a yawn.

Roxas looked at him from the corner of his eyes, really, really looked at him, and Axel very believably, very smoothly went to sleep.

He knew, because his eyes were closed, and his breathing slowed, and the hand that had been incessantly (wonderfully) massaging his scalp dropped down to his shoulder, curled around his ear and neck, and pulled him in close.

Roxas tried to fight his slowly closing eyes, waiting for Axel to abruptly wake and drill him with questions, or kick him out, or squeal, or something worse, but when it didn't happen, and the room remained still and quiet, Roxas stopped fighting, and kinda-sorta-fell asleep too.

Maybe this was okay for now.


	6. Love is: Resolve

Chapter 6 is up. Thanks so much for the feedback, everyone. :) Just as a warning, badness and sadness for the next few chapters.

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**Chapter 6: Love is Resolve**

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Roxas came home.

Roxas came home, and Hayner did not look good that afternoon, and Roxas hated that he discovered this after Axel's hodgepodge dinner-not-dinner, and sweet-best-friend words had knocked all of the common sense out of his system. _This _level of greatness could only be achieved through severe karmic retribution, the likes of which Roxas had unfortunately seen before, and since things were clearly going well, the cherry on top of this curdled sundae was that Hayner appeared to have had a couple of ounces of spirits.

When Roxas slipped through the door, peeling off his soggy gloves and guilt, he had kind of faintly hoped that Hayner would have cooled down a bit from when they last spoke, but what he found was that maybe he was still angry, or something else had happened in the mean time, because he was sitting in the living room with his feet propped up on the table, a glass with amber liquid clutched in his hand, and bad aura clinging to his body like a wrapping paper on a present.

The door creaked too much in his hands, Roxas thought intensely, because anything, _anything _was better than thinking about Hayner looking at him with droopy hazel eyes. He shrugged out of his coat and boots, and wondered if maybe he could offer to shovel off the porch again, or cook dinner or clean the room, or buy him a pony.

Hayner stretched.

Roxas stared.

"Hey Hayner," Roxas said tentatively, taking a step forward and hissing internally as his foot made the floor creak. "Eh…"

Hayner didn't say anything, but his eyes did, honing onto Roxas like some kind of tracking beams or cross hares or something, and it made Roxas uncomfortable in a way that made turning right back around and leaving seem pretty great.

"I'm back."

Hayner gave a slow, jerky nod, the kind that Roxas imagined a doll would if had been pumped full of liquor and grumpiness. "Yeah."

"Right. Well, I can see that you're busy, so I'm just going to head back and go to sleep."

Hayner was silent, watching and doing the jerky neck thing, so Roxas took this as permission to slip away into the darkness, hopefully to be forgotten.

"Come here."

The voice was quiet, almost to the point where Roxas didn't hear it. But he did; he had heard that voice in that whisper in that _way_ so many other times that it was impossible for him to ignore it, or pretend that it didn't exist. He swallowed hard, and pulled on a smile because that was all he could do.

"Ah, yeah, Hayner?" He walked forward, mentally punching himself because his voice sounded so weak. He didn't need to feel scared. This was Hayner; Hayner who loved, and protected and disciplined him, because he oh-so-desperately needed it.

Hayner didn't say anything, and reached up with a clammy hand to grab Roxas's and pull him down on the couch.

It was nice. Hayner wanted him to sit.

As he did, and felt his body sink down into the too-warm cushions and the husky scent of alcohol wrap around his nostrils in a prickly way. His body burned, but not because he wanted to get kind of tipsy too, but because whatever happened in the next few minutes might not be so great.

He let out a sigh masked as a content purr, and waited, waited as Hayners cold hands wrapped around his waist, waited as his fingers traveled up his ribs, waited as Hayner pulled him closer.

This was nice, Roxas mentally whispered to his hammering heart and the hairs on the back of his neck that refused to stay down. Hayner was kissing his shoulder, and even through the tight fabric of his sweater and the bitter scent of the burbon-whisky-gin-whatever, his lips were still on him, and that could only be proof of the love he had been trying to convince Axel and Sora of all along.

Hayner kissed his shoulder all the way up to his neck, his cold nose pressing against the skin just above the collar of his shirt, just where bruises were fading and still trying to heal. Hayner didn't notice, and Roxas tried not to, too.

"Where've you been?" Hayner muttered, partially muted by Roxas's shoulder, partially muted by alcohol.

Whatever success Roxas had achieved in keeping his heart rate down suddenly went to pieces.

"Where have…where have I been?"

"Yeah," Hayner said while inhaling, his face fully in Roxas's neck now, fingers getting kind of grabby around Roxas's sides.

Roxas tried to think of other things, things that were good, and happy, and not related to Axel. Oh if Hayner found out where he had decided to go last night, if he found out how pathetic and desperate he had been wandering out in the snow with a swollen lip, dragging the shreds of his dignity all the way down the street, up the hill, up the next hill, and then up the one after that all the way to Axel's house… If _that_ ever, ever, _ever _happened, especially now, when things were kind of teeter-tottering between bad and really bad…no, Roxas was quite sure he wouldn't be leaving for a long time.

Puppies-bunnies-kittens-unicorns-sweets-chocolate-bells-bows-cake-sunshine-Things that weren't Axel.

"Ah, I was…"

Hayner stopped kissing him, and slid his hand from around Roxas's waist to the side of his arm.

It hadn't been a dead Hayner's-not-really-listening-anyway kind of question. He had stopped, because there was an expectation for an answer.

Roxas swallowed hard, sweat pinching from the tiniest pours in his neck. "I just kind of wandered around for a while, like you told me to."

Hayner waited, and Roxas lied.

"And then I spent the night at Sora's house."

"At Sora's house." Hayner repeated, and started kissing his skin again. It was an accident averted, and Roxas had never felt so much relief. He was so relieved that he felt tense again, and when Hayer was grabbing his sides like that, and dragging his cold lips all over Roxas's prickly skin, he couldn't help but feel stiff and awkward.

Then Hayner bit his ear.

Roxas winced, reflexively ducking down.

And suddenly he wished that he had never been born with muscles.

Hayner stopped and pulled back, a confused look on his face.

Roxas's mouth went dry, dry, dry. "Sorry," he said quietly, trying to lean back in after remembering the rules. "I didn't mean to…ah, just hurt."

Hayner nodded slowly, leaned back in, and watched.

Roxas tried to pretend that Hayner's eyes weren't on him, that they weren't searching from an element of deception, or a trace of Axel on his skin (and there really, really truly wouldn't be). But then what if Hayner found something that looked like evidence that he had? What if he found out right then while things weren't awful, and he was in a kissy mood instead of a mean one, and what if the glass left the table and went smashing against the wall like _last time_, and the neighbors got all curious, and asked questions Roxas couldn't answer and made Hayner do things that made Roxas stay awake night after night after night…

Hayner was still watching him, then he kissed the spot behind his ear where things normally would have gotten a lot more interesting, but didn't today. It made Roxas want to fall away in a corner where he could feel guilty and ashamed all by himself.

Hayner stopped again.

Roxas felt panic rise up in his throat.

"What're you doing?" Hayner said at last, pulling back, and taking all of Roxas's strength with him.

"I'm not…I'm not doing anything." He forced a smile.

"No, there's something wrong."

Nothing was wrong. There was nothing wrong at all. Roxas told him as much.

But even through the haze of whatever Hayner had been drinking, he would have to be completely stupid to ignore that Roxas was maybe a little bit stiff and maybe a little bit jumpy.

"You're acting weird."

Roxas felt his heart rate jump forward just a notch, but to hide it, he laughed it off and scooted closer. "I'm not trying to. I'm sorry."

Hayner didn't move to reciprocate and just eyed him again, as if through a magnifying glass. Instead, he reached for his drink on the table, took a small sip, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's almost like you're…"

_Tired-bored-sleepy-dead-itchy-sick-not-hidng-something-tired-cold-not-hiding-something-not-hiding..._

"Almost like I'm what?"

"It's almost like you're scared of me."

Roxas tried to look anywhere but Hayner, anywhere but the table with the glass, and other objects that could easily become airborne.

Hayner tilted his head back, his lips turned upward just a little at the corners, as if something was coming into bloom of being amusing and not disastrous.

"I don't know what you mean, Hayner, I—"

"Roxas," Hayner said the grin glowing, and the cup in his hand tilting the glass just so the liquid inside swirled about the bottom. "Are you scared of me?"

"Of course not, Hayner, don't be silly."

Then Hayner was doing the grabby things with his hands again, so Roxas could have started singing about clowns on unicycles for all words really mattered at that point anyway.

"Then what are you doing?"

And _yes_, his brain was fully aware of what was happening, so if his heart and lungs, and skin could have stopped broadcasting that fact, that would have been perfect. But no, they were hammering, and huffing, and prickling away like Hayner wasn't sitting right next to him trying to close the space between them.

Roxas rolled his shoulders upward in a stiff interpretation of a shrug. "Nothing, just…"

"Hn, '_nothing just…' _right."

"Really Hayner, I'm not."

Hayner was back attaching his lips and teeth to Roxas's neck, and Roxas focused on other things, like how this was actually what real lovers did all the time, and that if this wasn't proof of normalcy, then he didn't know what was. He stared up at the ceiling and waited for whatever was supposed to happen to happen, like maybe the ceiling would fall on top of his head, or the ground would open and swallow him up, or maybe everyone could just go to bed early.

Then the drink in Hayner's hand tipped and spilled, sending a dribble of amber liquid down Roxas's jeans and into the couch. The glass followed, bumping into Roxas's knee before hitting the carpet with a dull 'clink' that only Roxas seemed to notice, because Hayner was draped over him like a knitted scarf. His arms tightened around his body, and Roxas looked at the stain in the carpet, and not at Hayner's hands and arms and eyes.

"C'mon, kiss me."

"Hayner…that's…the carpet."

"Kiss me, Roxas."

Roxas rolled his eyes (but only to himself), and gave Hayner a strained, half hearted peck on the side of the mouth, which was about all he could handle, and the carpet too, because he _knew_ it was going to be ruined soon.

"That's not a kiss, Roxas. Kiss me."

Roxas tried to laugh, but it came out like an unintended cough-laugh, that Hayner ignored, because in the next moment he was smothering Roxas's face with lips and teeth and skin, and Roxas was pinned to the back of the couch with the sunken pillows and warm cushions.

Roxas felt the reflexive pull, and tenseness shoot through his body before he had a chance to stop it, so he realized, in hindsight, that he shouldn't have been surprised when the hand around his waist clawed up his back and into his hair, yanking his head backward.

"S'matter with you, eh?" Hayner said, lips close to his ear, hot breath making Roxas's skin prickle. "Don't pull away from me."

"Hayner, I'm not…come on."

The hand yanked, and Roxas's hair strained against the skin of his scalp, sending sharp stabs of pain onto his head like fiery little pick axes, and when the tears pricked the corner of his eyes (from the pain, not because of what he knew was coming), he refused to let them show, because Hayner just wanted a proper kiss. Roxas couldn't blame him. Really, he couldn't.

"Hayner, that hurts. Please stop…"

Hayner gave his head a good shake. "Of course it hurts. Everything _hurts." _

The fingers left, and Roxas was thrust forward, but he expertly avoided hitting his head against the corner of the table. Hayner stood and walked around for a minute. He did that from time to time, like when he was really angry and didn't know what to throw, or punch, or kick, all before he remembered what he usually liked to throw or punch or kick. Roxas watched him, but only partially. Part of him was masochistically interested in the back of his head and whether or not it could still grow hair. ("Why am I bald, you ask? Well Axel, it's actually the strangest thing. You see, last night I fell out of bed and…").

Hayner stomped around while Roxas invented scenarios, as was their way. At least it was until Hayner stopped walking around and started looking at things, things like the table, like the chair, and glasses, and plates, and Roxas. Then he would start talking, and Roxas was grateful for this, because focusing on his voice was a lot less painful than focusing on the bruises and glass imbedded in skin.

"You know what else hurts, _Roxas_," Hayner was saying on ears who had heard this before, ears that had heard every possible combination of words that preceded the tempest.

"Hayner…"

"It hurts when you pull away from me, like you don't want to be here anymore. That it? You ready to call it quits?"

Roxas shook his head furiously, now aware that he did apparently still have hair because each and every strand at the back of his head was singing a song of screams at the movement. "Of course not."

"I think you do. Every time, Roxas. Every time I—_we_ do this, you always act like a scared little girl. You want me to leave? Should I leave you here alone again?"

"Hayner, please, I'm just not in—"

"_Not in the mood_, right? Tired? Maybe you're hungry and can't get to it without a proper meal, is that it? Is that why I have to pull teeth to ever get you to kiss me anymore? Maybe you've been hanging out with Axel so much that this isn't interesting for you, that sound about right?"

Roxas nearly stood up at such an exclamation. He would never. He would _never._ He would _never, _and Axel was just a friend. In fact, as far as Hayner was concerned, they were bitter enemies who never spoke, never talked, never laughed, never shared stories, and tea, and warm couches when home was just too cold. They were people, two separate, individual people who didn't like each other.

"Of course not, it's not like that."

"Then prove it."


	7. Love is: Understanding

Much thanks for all of the feedback, everyone! I truly appreciate all of the kind words. Chapter seven is up just in time for the end of the world or whatever.

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**Chapter 7: Love is Understanding**

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"Prov—" Before Roxas opened his mouth to question him (and really, why should he?), Hayner was back sitting down next to him, chewing off his face and grabbing him in a way that wasn't quite as nice as it was when Hayner was far away just pacing around the room. When one hand gripped his thigh, and the other clamped around the back of his head like a vice, he kept his protests to a minimum, shushed the surprised whimper rising up in his throat, stilled his hands, and tried to will the stiffness from his knees.

"S'better," Hayner mumbled into Roxas's teeth, who, even being in such close proximity didn't really hear much. His heart was hammering loudly, selfishly in his ears.

Then Hayner bit down on his lip, and _that_ sound he couldn't suppress, but luckily, like so many times before, Hayner interpreted it as a sound of pleasure, not pain, which really worked out well in the end. It usually meant that the shouting could be put off for a while longer.

"You like it like that," Or something…Roxas wasn't sure what it was that Hayner was muttering, because his face was buried in the crook of his shoulder again, teeth pulling and tugging along his skin like it was supposed to feel good and not like small daggers were stabbing him repeatedly, but he kept that thought to himself and waited, waited, waited.

It crossed his mind briefly—and he tried to keep these times to a minimum—that he probably shouldn't have to pretend that it didn't hurt, or keep a neutral face so that he wouldn't regret it later, but then he remembered that not everybody could be Sora and Riku's unrealistic fairy tale of a relationship, and that sometimes people put up with things when they loved each other. Like it was supposed to be.

Roxas was thinking this as an intense pressure was building up behind his eyes, threatening to push them out, and Hayner's hands kept grabbing. The teeth skating up and down his neck paused on a pressure point though, and his heart cracked in half when they clamped down hard enough to break skin.

Roxas couldn't help it. He cried out, hand grazing the side of Hayner's cheek. And hated himself for it, hated that he couldn't just pretend for a little while longer, at least until everything was over and he was in bed while Hayner watched television, and _there_ he could cry and whine about it by himself. But _there _wasn't _here, _and the fury that ignited in Hayner's eyes as Roxas reflexively reached up to rub his sore neck, was completely, and fully deserved.

"Hayner, I'm sorry," Roxas said, tongue refusing to stay steady behind his teeth, forcing himself to look in Hayner's eyes now to prove that he really, truly was. "It was an accident, I—"

"This is exactly what I thought," He said through gritted teeth, grabbing Roxas's wrist and yanking him forward onto the floor. "Can't do anything with you anymore…such a little tease, and then you act like you don't want it…"

Roxas nodded, he wasn't fair to Hayner. It really wasn't. "Hayner, I really mean it. We can go back to…I won't…."

"_No_, you really won't."

And a kick landed in Roxas's stomach.

Then another.

Then another.

Then there were possibly three more, but Roxas had stopped counting and was waiting for the bitter taste in his mouth and the colors to dance behind his eyes.

Waiting.

There, something salty, metallic and sour touched the back of his tongue, and stars exploded behind his eyes like fire crackers at a party, and that meant that it was almost over. Hayner never went too far. Only enough to punish when Roxas had been wrong. This was what made them so much different than all those other poor, sad people on the news with the stories about broken homes and bloody noses. It was so much different, because Hayner loved him and would never think to go too far like those other people did.

The kicking stopped soon after, just like Roxas knew it would, and he stopped to listen. He would know soon if Hayner was finished, or if there was more left to punish just by the way he breathed, the way his body was positioned above him, the way his hands hung at his sides.

Air singed Roxas's lungs as it tried to crawl back into them to let him breathe, but the moment was over and there was more to be sorry for.

And Roxas wished he could have that moment back, take it back to thirty seconds ago, or maybe half an hour ago when he made the decision to come home before Hayner was less angry, or a million years ago when he had done something to make him so mad that this became a routine. He wanted to go back to when he first met Hayner, or when was just hanging out with Axel, or just Sora, or his parents' house, or birth. Before that. Before existing.

Hayner kicked him again, right in the chest, where the wind was knocked out of him, and his head cracked against their stupid coffee table, his back pressed right into the spill of alcohol on the floor from earlier. And then Hayner reached down and grabbed him by the hair. "Get up. So easy for you to move earlier, right?"

And dragged him.

He was past the point where yelling would do any good. No, Roxas told himself as he clamped his lips together and crawled after Hayner's unrelenting hand attached to his head. Yelling would only make the neighbors come, and it would be so much worse when they left. It would be so much worse.

Hayner was screaming now, screaming at him, at the walls at the room, at everything and nothing. "You make me so sick, you know that? Doesn't matter what I say or do for you, it's always the same!"

_Ungrateful whorewhorewhore. _Roxas's backside scooted against the linoleum of the kitchen, past the dining set and against the oven. It felt cool against his face, and stinging arms.

Hayner let go of his hair though, and it wasn't good. It wasn't good, because while the fire in his head stopped burning, it meant his hands were free to do other things, other things that were worse than being dragged, other things that were worse than being kicked.

Roxas kept his eyes closed, because he didn't want to see, didn't want to know, didn't want to feel. And when Hayner came back at him again, it was _not_ Hayner—Hayner who loved Roxas just as much as Roxas loved him, the Hayner who never went too far. No, it was not him, because it just couldn't be, not to Axel, not to Sora, and not to Roxas either.

His arm was hurting, not because it was pinned behind his back wedged between the oven and the awkward little storage cabinet with the broken hinge, but because he had fallen out of bed and smacked it against the night stand. Again.

The bruises were not from socked feet and ringed-fingers that kicked and punched, but from the concrete sidewalk outside, covered in snow and ice and slush. Roxas was clumsy, and the concrete was hard and cold. Again.

And his nose…it was bleeding just because it just _was_ and that's all that mattered because it wasn't anyone's business anyway. Roxas's nose could bleed all over the planet if he wanted it to, and so could his mouth, because it was Roxas's body to do with what he wanted.

And the tears, the tears that never fell because crying was for weak people, sad people, hurt people, and people who weren't loved, no, they didn't exist either. His eyelashes were wet from snow and cold and whatever else sounded good. Roxas didn't cry.

"Hayner," he said, quietly, sure that his voice sounded just as pathetic as it felt coming out, hugged by wetness and gravely things in his throat. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…I…"

"You're sorry, you're sorry, you're sorry," Hayner mimicked, pausing only to wipe his hand on his shirt and assess. "I bet you're sorry."

And then he picked Roxas up by the collar of his shirt, and threw him into the space where the counter met the wall, where the cabinets met the wall too. His teeth clenched together; the pots and pans rattling inside the cabinets, inside his head.

"You're sorry now because I'm mad at you, right? Sorry because it hurts?"

Hayner held him there, and Roxas didn't know what he wanted, or if there really was anything at all. All he knew, was that Hayner was breathing hard, and the stars behind his eyes were back, blooming and blossoming like it was spring time.

"Answer me," Hayner hissed so low that it felt like his voice was crawling up Roxas's skin, down through his ears and into his body, running through his veins. And he did want to answer him, he really did, because it was a valid and important question, but the stars were still blooming, faster and faster now, and rainclouds! It very well may have started raining in their kitchen, right from the back of his head into the collar of his shirt.

Hayner was saying more things, and screaming others, and Roxas felt his head bounce between the cabinet and wall and floor, just before he felt his face connect with prickly carpeting that bruised his nose. He tasted and smelled metal.

"Pull away from me ever again," Hayner was saying, his foot connecting with Roxas's side, rolling him over into the coffee table again. Roxas just let him, because he was right, and the stars behind his eyes were ringing in his head and telling him that it was going to be okay. If he stayed still and ignored the pain, and the numbness, and the metallic smell, it would be over and the end would be good. He could tell though, that the red streaks on the carpet were getting darker the longer he kept his head in one spot, and darker stains meant they were harder to clean out later.

Hayner's foot was poised above his chest, and _over_ was coming so close. There would be a sharp crack of splintering bone, and there would be pain, but it would end soon, as it always did. And while he healed, Hayner would say such nice things and promise that it would never happen again, too. Yes, _over _was near, and _over_ was perfect.

When Hayner's heel connected with Roxas's chest, he expected the immediate ripple of pain to shoot down his sternum, through his arms, radiating through his body.

He expected the sound of breaking bone to reverberate in his ears like a clash of cymbals in a sound room.

And he expected the bubble of red to jet up his throat and spill all over his lips, and the side of his face, and the carpet.

But what he did not expect was the sound of a lock mechanism shifting into place.

The door was opening.


	8. Love is: Breaking

Well since we survived the end of the world, Chapter eight is up and ready to go. I realize that I may have neglected a proper violence warning in the last chapter, so hopefully it wasn't too traumatic. Thanks for sticking with this so far! Nearly done, now!

* * *

**Chapter 8: Love is Breaking**

* * *

There were lots of sounds and colors and light.

And all of it was awful.

Roxas remembered, as the haze went away and the feeling of plastic and starch, and bleach clung to his bones like some kind of sterile wrapping paper, that something was distinctly not right, and that waking up would not be good.

When his eyes were open despite the protests of his body, and the wills of his mind, he regretted it.

Everything was white.

He was not home with Hayner, curled up on the couch as was their way.

He was not home, cooking dinner and thumbing through the free magazines that came in the mail.

He was not home, rolling around in his bed, wondering if Hayner had left for the day, or if he was still in the shower using up all of the hot water.

No, he was not there, where things were normal, and warm, and right. He was in a place that he shouldn't be, a place that was cold, and wrong, wrong, wrong.

The haze of questions and _wrongness_ flitting through his mind was suddenly broken by a dull hum from somewhere around him…somewhere, and then there was buzzing and beeping. It was like traffic, only worse because his head hurt, and he wasn't sure where he was going anyway, and maybe Hayner needed the car to get to work, so why on earth did he have it…?

When the haziness from his eyes lifted too, he realized with relief (or maybe it wasn't relief) that he wasn't stuck in traffic, and that he had just passed out somewhere and was now someplace else.

Which begged a lot of questions.

Roxas considered this for three, maybe four more minutes as he stared blankly at a whole lot of white, but it wasn't long before things really started to sink in, and the whole situation began to drag him down, down, down into a pit of complete and utter horror. The humming was coming from a machine. The buzzing was coming from a machine. The beeping was coming from a machine.

Roxas was attached to those machines.

Roxas was in a hospital.

* * *

There were minutes, and then there were hours, and during all of that time, Roxas had tried several unsuccessful times to leave, because really, he had no business being in a hospital. He didn't remember why he was there, and honestly didn't even care. He had to be home. He had to be home immediately. He didn't know why he needed to be there, but he just _did_, and that was a good enough reason. Maybe if he could find out from Hayner what had happened, or talk to Sora, or really, he was fine just pretending the whole thing didn't exist, because something in the pit of his stomach told him that knowing would be worse than keeping it a secret from himself.

He tore at covers, and machines, and wires that dripped clear liquid into veins that Roxas was pretty sure were supposed to be red and blue, but _whatever_, he wasn't a doctor. He was going to get out, out and away to a home that made sense. As he tried to pry himself free of wires and plastic clutter, he realized though, that leaving was going to be a lot harder than it should have been. A woman with a syringe and empty threats came in yelling something about staying in bed and that someone was coming for him soon, but she wasn't even a part of a problem that Roxas was even remotely interested in. No, his body forbade him from moving more than one or two plastic wires, because it protested so furiously with shots of pain racing up and down his limbs and torso, that sitting still was about the only action that he could take without rousing it.

The nurse came back. She did something fiddly with the tubes, and left.

The pain stopped.

But Roxas didn't try to leave again. Desperation set in, and it was at this point where Roxas was pretty sure he was about half a step away from a nervous breakdown.

Then the door opened again.

* * *

More minutes and hours passed, and Roxas could easily tell that they were much, much worse than the last set, because at least then, things weren't starting to feel like he was slowly watching a car careen into a ditch.

It was Sora.

And Sora was crying.

He didn't waste any time crossing the room (and Sora never did waste time, especially when he was adamant about touching someone), and wrapped his arms so tightly around Roxas's neck that the wires in his arms were pulling at his skin, and breathing was starting to become more of a struggle than it probably should have been, and yeah whatever the nurse had done with the syringe had helped, but it hadn't helped _that _much.

Sora was wet, and cold, and wearing pajamas and sneakers like he didn't care how he looked in public, and he was crying so hard that his shoulders were shaking, and tears were coming in rivers from his eyes, ruining Roxas's thin hospital gown, and making him wonder just what on earth was going on, and why his twin looked so miserable when clearly _he _wasn't the one strapped to a hospital bed with bones and muscles that protested to getting up.

"Roxas," Sora hiccup-coughed into his shoulder, not bothering to pull himself together or explain why he felt it necessary to hook onto him like some kind of parasitic plant. "He's never going to touch you again. You can move in with me and Riku until we get things sorted out at your place, and if he ever even says your _name _again, I swear, Roxas I will come find him, and murder him to the point that the police won't even be able to recognize his remains!"

Then Sora was back to crying again like the world was ending, blubbering into Roxas's neck and getting tears everywhere, so Roxas didn't have the heart to ask him to explain. He sat there patting Sora's back instead, not sure if he could truthfully tell him that it would "be okay," because he wasn't sure himself, and that was probably the worst part.

When Sora finally collected himself enough to where he could just stare at him like he was some kind of lost orphan, he noticed that beyond Sora's shoulder, way in the back next to the crumby plastic chair and hand sanitizer, was Riku. His eyes were red.

* * *

Roxas took back thinking that the previous minutes to hours had been bad. He took it back, because the next hour was infinitely worse. It was so much worse that he wanted to cry, and kick, and scream, and maybe die, and maybe take Axel with him, because _no_ there was no way that this was happening.

"You don't remember what happened?" Sora had said as more of a statement than a question, his voice wavering in a way that made Roxas know immediately that he didn't want to remember at all. Riku had walked forward at that point, holding Sora's hand and staring down at him with his red-rimmed eyes and grim expression. No, Roxas did not want to know.

"You really don't remember anything?"

Roxas shook his head slowly, tentatively.

Sora's face twisted, and Riku squeezed his hand tighter, and Roxas didn't know what to think, because the tears happened again, and Riku was trying to keep Sora from strangling something.

"Really, Roxas. How many times has he done this to you?"

"I don't know what you're…" He thought, and then this conversation started to sound very familiar. "Don't start, Sora."

"Don't start what?" Sora asked. "Don't start trying to get you to wake up?"

Roxas absently started tugging at the wires in his arms again, because escape might need to happen, especially if the conversation continued down the current route. "Stop it. Now is not the time to start badgering me on what you think is going on with me and Hayner. I'm not—"

Sora exploded, and even Riku stopped rubbing Sora's arm in what-was-supposed-to-be-soothing-but-failed motions. "He almost _killed_ you, Roxas!" Riku regained his grip, holding Sora's arms, either to calm him, or to keep him from grabbing Roxas's shoulders and shaking him, but either way it didn't keep him from yelling words that Roxas didn't want to hear. "He almost killed you. You. Almost. Ceased. To. Exist. Because of him. _That's_ why you're in the hospital!"

Roxas scoffed, feeling his own throat get tight, and the muscles in his back tense and fray. Sora couldn't just talk about…_well, _he didn't know anything about…He was just being…Hayner would never…Hayner just didn't… "Shut up. You don't even know what you're talking about."

"Really? Then why are you in the hospital, Roxas? Why am I here staring at you in a hospital bed with all this crap all over the place," he gestured vaguely to things in the room that Roxas didn't even bother to follow, because watching his brother come apart at the seams like this was a lot harder to ignore than crummy wall paper and the tubes in his arms. "Why have I been sitting in a waiting room answering questions from the police at this hour, trying harder than you can even know not to go find that bastard and make him regret the day he even looked at you, huh?"

Riku hugged Sora, and mumbled something in his ear, a gesture Roxas would have turned his nose up and scowled at—so gross—but he couldn't look away, or even make a snide comment. Things he had thought about for years, things he had concealed so well that even _he_ was starting to forget existed were slowly crawling from beneath the thick mask of normalcy that he had worked so hard to build.

And he really, truly didn't know how to deal with it.

"Stop talking to me."

"Stop talking to you? That's funny, Roxas, because you almost stopped talking to _me_!"

"Sora," Riku was saying, looking back and forth between Sora's clenched jaw, and whatever face Roxas was making. "Let's let—"

"Stop talking to me!" Roxas said loudly…too loudly. His voice hurt his own ears. "I'm done with you, and all of this. Get out and leave me alone!" And he meant it. Too much. It was all too much.

"Not a chance," Sora said, breaking out of Riku's arms and onto Roxas's shoulders with a tentative grip that was so full of uncertainty and fear, that Roxas didn't know if he should start screaming or crying.

"The last time I left you alone, you promised me everything was fine, and he _beat_ you, Roxas. I sat on the sidelines and let it happen, because I'm a horrible brother, and I trusted that you wouldn't be this big of an idiot, and that maybe, just _maybe_ all the bruises and the broken bones, and the weeks without even seeing your ugly, stupid face were a figment of my imagination. I'm not leaving you alone for the rest of your life, and if you think for even one moment that I'm going to just walk out because you tell me to, you've lost more of your mind than I thought!"

"Shut up," Roxas said, and he realized with the sense of horror that was already becoming an ever present feeling throughout this whole experience, that the words were pushed through a sob, and that tears were streaming down his face in pathetic little rivers. "Shut up, and get away from me!"

Sora was crying now too, and everything was so wrong and horrible and messed up that he didn't even bother to shove him off of him when Sora hugged him and cried into his starchy shirt. He let him cry, and Roxas cried too, because honestly, there was nothing left to do.

.

* * *

Please offer a review if you have a minute! Chapter 9 (the last of this baby) will be up shortly.


	9. Love is: Not the End

Last chapter is up! Bitter-sweet for me...

* * *

**Chapter 9: Love is not the End**

* * *

Sora held him for a while, and that was a lot longer than Roxas was usually able to stand _ever_, but it was okay since Sora was quiet, and he wasn't saying all sorts of things that Roxas didn't want to hear.

Riku watched them from the corner of the room again, but he didn't look awkward, or mad, or bored. He wasn't sure what Riku was thinking—and really, he never was—but he supposed as long as he wasn't walking around touching things or trying to make him talk, then he could do whatever he wanted.

Sora had stopped crying, which was a relief, which meant he could too. Also that meant he could stop feeling like a pathetic weakling, and more like a pathetic weakling who wasn't also blubbering. There was still an unanswered question that was nagging at his mind though, a question that he wanted to make disappear when he closed his eyes.

He didn't want to know. He _did_, but he didn't. He didn't want to imagine…and what of Hayner, and no, if _anyone_ ever found out about this, _especially_…and how…

How did he get in the hospital in the first place?

The question…there. it ringing through his head like a funeral bell through the caverns of his mind and body, ringing and ringing and ringing.

"There's someone outside who needs to see you," Sora said before Roxas had the chance to ask him about something unrelated like dinosaurs or aerobic exercise. "I've been stalling because I know it's going to be hard for you, but mostly because I wanted to yell at you in private." He looked back at Riku and pursed his lips. "Well, whatever."

"Who?"

Sora made a face at him, and then Roxas's heart stopped beating and froze every drop of blood in his body into ice. "No."

"What do you mean, _no_?"

"I mean _no_ Sora."

"You don't even know who I'm talking about. How can you—"

"Sora, the answer is No." He scrubbed at his eyes with a starchy sleeve and glared. "What, did you run and tattle on me? I'm not doing it. Tell him to leave."

Sora chewed his bottom lip like he was being apologetic or something, then he sighed like maybe he wasn't being apologetic, but pitying instead.

"You kind of owe him at least that much."

Roxas snorted, then regretted it because his nose was dry and it hurt. "_Owe him? _I don't owe anyone anything. No."

Sora gave him the pitying look again, and Roxas wished he had kicked him out earlier. He wasn't really in a position to where he could protest (and Sora knew it, because he started walking towards the door even as Roxas yelled at him and called him every name he could think of).

"Sora, get back here!"

"Trust me," Sora said quietly, taking Riku's hand and steering him towards the door too. "I'd tell you, but I think this is probably better."

"Sora! Stop playing games with me!"

There was a brief moment when the room was empty, just after Riku's tails of too-long hair disappeared behind the door and he couldn't hear the squeak of their wet boots on the floor. It kind of reminded Roxas of what it must have felt like the moment after somebody jumped off a building, and all the thoughts and worries and feelings they had right before hitting the ground.

Then the moment was over, and the door opened, and Roxas wanted to die.

.

* * *

Axel.

Axel didn't look too well, Roxas observed, as his heart was trying to escape his chest, and his breathing was doing its very best to not happen. He felt like his body was going to implode on itself from shame, embarrassment, guilt but even he couldn't be self-focused enough to not notice that his skin was chalky, right beneath a couple of bruises and a busted lip.

Roxas wasn't sure what facial expression he was making, because to be honest, he wasn't even sure if he was alive anymore. Axel didn't say anything.

A hard swallow and a random hiccup.

Green eyes that stayed glued to the floor.

The only thing Roxas could think to do was say something stupid, and since saying and doing stupid things had been second nature lately, it sprung to his lips without much effort.

"What happened to your face?"

Axel's eyes left the floor, and Roxas wished they hadn't because they looked, in his opinion, worse than his face. Something in there was broken.

"I'm glad that you're okay." He said quietly, and that was it, which was the second reason since he had walked in that Roxas had to question just what was going on. That was never _it._ As much as Roxas hated to admit it, he was in the hospital with unanswered questions and an alarming blank space in his memory. Axel could not be finished.

"That's it?"

"What's it?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Here to see you."

"And that's it?"

"Yeah."

Roxas closed his eyes so that he could figure out how to arrange his face into a scowl, then did so with as much fury as he could muster. "I'm fine. Leave."

"You're mad already," Axel said in a kind-of-laugh and walked closer, completely ignoring what Roxas just said. "What did Sora tell you?"

"I don't like that you're having conversations behind my back like that."

"Couldn't really be helped…considering the state of things."

"Don't. He's making me see you. I owe you something?"

Axel snorted, and Roxas didn't like it. "Owe me?"

"So I'm told."

Axel shrugged. "You don't owe me anything, Roxas."

"Then why are you here?"

"I can't come see my friend while he's in the hospital?"

Roxas snorted just like Axel did—intentionally—and rolled his eyes. He could tell exactly where this was doing, and wasn't going to let it happen. "I don't trust you."

"Why?"

"Don't toy with me. Something happened, and I know you have something to do with it. I don't want to know what it is, I just want you to leave so things can get back to normal."

Axel put both hands on the bed rail, and glared at him like he had just kicked a baby animal.

"Axel, get—"

"Just listen to me, okay?"

"No."

"You're talking about Hayner, aren't you?"

"What, he's not '_what's-his-face-today_?' Yes, I'm talking about him, and being normal, and you not being here. Once I'm out, we'll talk and everything will—"

"He's not coming back for you."

"Axel, you're not—"

"He's _not_ coming back for you, Roxas. He's not."

"You have no idea what Hayner's going to do. You're just—"

"He's gone away. Jail, something…whatever. He's there, you're here, and I'm standing in between you."

Roxas scoffed and shook his hand away, now officially fed up with everybody named Axel and Sora. "That sounded cute. What are you, prince charming? Trying to take me away from some nightmare you think I live in? You don't know anything, and I thought I told you not to get involved in my relationships. Get out of my room!"

The last part, he screamed. And he could only tell that he was screaming because there was a soft noise against the door like someone (Sora) was leaning against it trying to decide whether or not he should come in. Sora could come in all right. He could come in, and he would yell at Sora too, because both he and Axel were crossing every line he had ever drawn.

Axel just stared at him more with broken eyes, eyes that didn't suit him, and Roxas much preferred it when he was doing that slow blink he always did when Roxas lied, or something equally annoying.

"I hit him, you know." It was a whisper.

"You what?"

"I hit him," Axel said louder. "I hit him in the face. And then I hit him again, and again, and again. Broke his nose, maybe a tooth. Know why?"

And then Axel leaned in really close, too close, because Roxas could see the shine in his eyes, his skin, and the muscles flexing beneath. It was too close, because Roxas couldn't hide, and knew right then that no matter how much he denied, begged, and pleaded that Axel was going to tell him the truth.

"Because he was hurting you."

In one sharp, sudden instant, Roxas lost all of the breath in his body, and all of the feelings in his limbs. Vertigo. Nausea. Emptiness.

The bruises on Axel's face—his swollen eye and cracked lip—they all started telling a story, and then he understood what it must feel like to have his insides ripped out and splayed out for all the world to see.

"What…what did you say?"

Please, nothing, _nothing, nothingnothingnothingnothing ._ He couldn't have seen. No one, _Axel_ wouldn't understand, it was just their thing…sometimes Hayner just needed to…sometimes…_nothing_ was wrong.

"I saw him hurting you, Roxas. I saw him step on you like you were nothing."

Axel's hand found its way around Roxas's face—both of them—and Roxas's ears were burning and so were his eyes, and just about every other part of his body that could possibly possess a nerve ending. Burning in pain, burning in grief, burning in shame, burning in everything.

"You're not nothing Roxas. No one can ever treat you that way."

A sob broke out of Roxas's voice before he could call it back and retain whatever tiny bit of self worth he thought he had left. Because now Hayner was gone, and it meant that he was alone again, and it also meant that whatever dignity he thought he had left from the secrets and the lies were also steadily washing away with the tears down his face. Sora knew, and Riku knew, and Axel knew how pathetic things had really gotten.

"Great," Roxas said with a sniff, because trying to hide it at this point was not only useless, but also impossible. "This is great. Now you know the extent of my desperation, don't you? Ridiculous, right? Pathetic, too?" Then more tears came and Roxas wanted to die even more, because he couldn't stand himself. "I am...well..._was_ in a relationship that was clearly one sided for forever because I'm not good enough for someone else to want me, and now that it's over, everyone's all 'I told you so, Roxas,' and 'How could you let this happen to yourself?' Well, you and Sora were right, so please just do me a favor and postpone the celebration for when I get out of here, because I really, really, _really_, can't deal with that right now."

Axel was just watching him cry, and Roxas couldn't blame him, but when he moved his thumbs to wipe away some of his tears and looked down at him with the same not-annoying broken eyes, Roxas found himself a little confused, and mostly well…he wasn't sure _what_ the other things were.

And Axel kissed him.

Before Roxas's brain could even possibly register what was happening, Axel kissed him again. On the lips, on his nose, on his forehead, lips again. Then he kissed his cheeks, right where the tears were streaming from his eyes in a wet, salty mess. He kissed each eyelid, too, softly, slowly, meaningfully. And then he just held his face in his hands a while longer, really staring at him as if to memorize every line, or to tell him something, or both.

"We'll only celebrate you healing."

Stunned, shocked silence.

"Don't cry."

A wet hiccup from a stupid mouth connected to a stupid brain that was too shocked to be of any use."Don't…tell me what to do."

Axel cracked a smile, which looked awful with the condition of his face, but it was also kind of perfect. "You always leave your stuff at my house," he said quietly, moving his hand from Roxas's face to his back pocket where for all Roxas knew held what was left of his mind, and things that made sense.

Instead it was something shiny and golden, something Roxas had forgotten about too long ago to matter.

His apartment key.

"Found it after you left the other day. I came over to return it to you…maybe to start a little trouble, but whatever."

"You…"

"Worth the pending trespassing and assault charges." The smile broke into a full grin, but Roxas probably wouldn't have been able to tell if he had just sprouted another head because he still didn't know what to think. He pressed the key into Roxas's hand.

There was a knock at the door, but it clearly was a formality because the door swung open anyway. Roxas caught a glimpse of Sora's face—he was chewing his lip—before it was obscured by a uniform-clad nurse.

"Hi," she said in a voice that was too kind for her face. "I'm sorry but visiting hours are ending. I'll have to ask your friend to leave for the night."

Axel shrugged, which Roxas was kind of surprised to see because Axel usually did whatever Axel wanted, and that didn't usually fall in line with what other people wanted Axel to do. "It's fine. We can figure out whatever _this_ is later," Axel said making a vague gesture with his hands at the air. The space included Roxas, and he couldn't pretend that he didn't notice.

The nurse looked confused, if not a little impatient. Axel ignored her, and Roxas appreciated it.

"You rest." Axel said backing up. "I'll come see you tomorrow."

Then things happened all too quickly, and Axel was gone, and the nurse was gone, and the room was empty except for Roxas and the machines, and the key.

It was still in his hand, warm from his skin and how hard he had been clutching it. He looked it over, thinking of Hayner, and what everything meant, and just what it was he was supposed to do from here.

"_We'll figure whatever this is out later," _Roxas muttered out loud, tucking the key behind his pillow and settling into it. It sounded awful, and so much like Axel.

Maybe that wasn't a bad thing.

* * *

Thank you again for reading. I know this was short - it was meant to be a brief exploration of a life moment. I actually meant it to be shorter than this but it kind of got away from me, and...yeah. Anyway, thanks for sticking with this so far. As always, if you have a moment, please offer feedback.


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